Origins of Purple Quiddity?

[Rrmcklin]

I don't have any particular ideas about this, and it may well be that we never get an explanation, but just a thread to discuss why the Dark One was able to tap into, apparently, a completely new Quiddity that the older gods had no idea existed.

For that matter, might as well talk about any other ideas or questions about Quiddity, in general.

[martianmister]

The Dark One is a creature of the Snarl and it's using him to escape and destroy the gods.

[Draconi Redfir]

i think the simplest answer is the most likely. He just sort of... accidentally created it.

Before the dark one arose, the purple quiddity didn't exist in any shape or form. maybe the potential for it didn't even exist.

when he ascended though, BAM, purple quiddity that's all there is too it.

[deuterio12]

I don't have any particular ideas about this, and it may well be that we never get an explanation, but just a thread to discuss why the Dark One was able to tap into, apparently, a completely new Quiddity that the older gods had no idea existed.

For that matter, might as well talk about any other ideas or questions about Quiddity, in general.

That the Dark One spontaneously ascended with his own Quiddity and just mortal support combined with the fact gods need mortal worship to sustain themselves seems to strongly suggest that all the gods were originally mortals themselves in a first world.

And the gods are either keeping it as another of their secrets or may've just forgot it.

[Rrmcklin]

That the Dark One spontaneously ascended with his own Quiddity and just mortal support combined with the fact gods need mortal worship to sustain themselves seems to strongly suggest that all the gods were originally mortals themselves in a first world.

And the gods are either keeping it as another of their secrets or may've just forgot it.

I don't agree with your chain of logic there, or the conclusions.

When the Dark One being a noted anomaly has become so important "they're keeping their origins a secret" makes no sense, and "they forgot" is completely unsatisfying.

[deuterio12]

I don't agree with your chain of logic there, or the conclusions.

When the Dark One being a noted anomaly has become so important "they're keeping their origins a secret" makes no sense, and "they forgot" is completely unsatisfying.

It's Natural that the Dark One would seem like an anomaly because the gods were already monopolizing and competing for most worship, so there wasn't much left for a new god to spontaneously ascend.

Also plenty of gods have made it pretty clear they would be pretty happy with just blowing up the world, the Dark One that dares to challenge them disappearing, and the status quo being maintained.

Plus the gods still need mortal worship to sustain themselves-meaning that the first mortals need to have appeared before the first gods. And the Dark One happens to be the only god with an origin source-mortal worship. There is no other known method of god formation in OoTS.

[Rrmcklin]

It's Natural that the Dark One would seem like an anomaly because the gods were already monopolizing and competing for most worship, so there wasn't much left for a new god to spontaneously ascend.

Also plenty of gods have made it pretty clear they would be pretty happy with just blowing up the world, the Dark One that dares to challenge them disappearing, and the status quo being maintained.

Plus the gods still need mortal worship to sustain themselves-meaning that the first mortals need to have appeared before the first gods. And the Dark One happens to be the only god with an origin source-mortal worship. There is no other known method of god formation in OoTS.

You got a lot of things wrong here.

1) You're missing the point, evidently Quiddity "type" isn't tied into the people worshipping him. The part that is surprising to them is that the Dark One is a new color, not that a new god could even rise because they were "monopolizing" mortal worship. A point has been made that mortals ascending to Godhood is not a thing they haven't seen before (The Elven Gods, Davlin the Demi-god, others probably); that's not what makes the Dark One special.

2) The Dark One isn't involved with whether they destroy the world or not; he has no say in the manner. Even if he did, Thor said the Snarl has gotten out before and destroyed their worlds; they just wait it out in that case.

3) You're talking about a chicken-and-egg scenario. The mortals only exist because the gods created them using multiple Quiddities. That the gods use mortal worship as nutrition now in no way precludes them coming into existence another way; it just means that however they used to sustain themselves is gone.

[Draconi Redfir]

Plus the gods still need mortal worship to sustain themselves-meaning that the first mortals need to have appeared before the first gods. And the Dark One happens to be the only god with an origin source-mortal worship. There is no other known method of god formation in OoTS.

simple answer: The primary gods either just spontaneously popped into existence akin to the big bang, or they've just always been there with no clear "beginning"

Or they just kind of appeared. You know "Ego" from Guardians of the Galaxy 2? Maybe something like that.

[deuterio12]

You got a lot of things wrong here.

1) You're missing the point, evidently Quiddity "type" isn't tied into the people worshipping him. The part that is surprising to them is that the Dark One is a new color, not that a new god could even rise because they were "monopolizing" mortal worship. A point has been made that mortals ascending to Godhood is not a thing they haven't seen before (The Elven Gods, Davlin the Demi-god, others probably); that's not what makes the Dark One special.

The key difference is that those acended "gods" did so under the patronage of other gods, that's why they share their patron's quiddity.

While the Dark One ascended from the goblins that were specifically created to be exp fodder, aka they had no god to support them as their patron. So the goblins just made their own god from scratch.

Once there was a source of worship that no god was willing to slurp in, a new god showed to use it.



2) The Dark One isn't involved with whether they destroy the world or not; he has no say in the manner. Even if he did, Thor said the Snarl has gotten out before and destroyed their worlds; they just wait it out in that case.

And why does the Dark One doesn't get a say in the first place?

Precisely, because he didn't ascend under the patronage of any of the other gods.



3) You're talking about a chicken-and-egg scenario. The mortals only exist because the gods created them using multiple Quiddities. That the gods use mortal worship as nutrition now in no way precludes them coming into existence another way; it just means that however they used to sustain themselves is gone.

Then why design the mortals in such a way that allows such dangerous feedback as Odin going senile?

And if they had other food sources, other origins, why not mention them?

Either way, they're still keeping secrets (or had their minds altered by worshiper feedback like Odin).

[Rrmcklin]

The key difference is that those acended "gods" did so under the patronage of other gods, that's why they share their patron's quiddity.

While the Dark One ascended from the goblins that were specifically created to be exp fodder, aka they had no god to support them as their patron. So the goblins just made their own god from scratch.

Once there was a source of worship that no god was willing to slurp in, a new god showed to use it.

And you're still not acknowledging the point that that even being possible in the first place is treated as mystery, it's not nearly as obvious as you're making it out to be, therefore, there's probably more to it than that.

You say he goblins "made their own god from scratch" as if it's been at all implied they were deliberately trying to do so.



And why does the Dark One doesn't get a say in the first place?

Precisely, because he didn't ascend under the patronage of any of the other gods.

The Dark One doesn't get a say because he's deliberately shut himself off from all the others. Thor made this very clear. It has nothing to do with how he ascended.




Then why design the mortals in such a way that allows such dangerous feedback as Odin going senile?

And if they had other food sources, other origins, why not mention them?

Either way, they're still keeping secrets (or had their minds altered by worshiper feedback like Odin).

Why are you assuming the gods have any power over that?

They didn't mention them because they're either not around anymore/are not important. Where they came from isn't pertinent to the story.

You are proposing a chicken and egg scenario in which the gods exist, because they rose up from mortals, who only exist because the gods created them, which only exist because mortals existed. Such thinking has a fundamental problem that should be obvious to see.

As Draconi said, the simplest answer is either the Gods spontaneously came into existence somehow or have sort of always "been" such that they don't really have an origin, but the current cycle being their origin just doesn't make any sense at all.

[deuterio12]

And you're still not acknowledging the point that that even being possible in the first place is treated as mystery, it's not nearly as obvious as you're making it out to be, therefore, there's probably more to it than that.

You say he goblins "made their own god from scratch" as if it's been at all implied they were deliberately trying to do so.

Ok, let me try to summarize this:
1-First world, no gods.
2-Some people become really popular and start to be worshiped and spontaneously ascend as gods just like the Dark One.
3-There's four initial gods for four differentt quiddities, at that point everybody is worshiping one of them so any new ascenscions are done by people who already have a patron god and thus after ascending share their patron's quiddity.
4-World gets destroyed somehow, gods try to make a new world because they need mortal worship to survive, snarl happens.
5-Zillion iteration of world remaking. Note that assuming there's at least X new gods ascended by iteration, there should be x times a zillion new gods by the comic's time. But since there's less than an hundred, god survival rate isn't that good. Which makes sense since there's only so much worship you can harvest from a single planet worth of mortals. This means competition for mortal worship is fierce, gods that can't keep up when there's too many of them get wiped out until the numbers drop until there's a bit of leftover for new gods to ascend again, but always under one of the pantheon's patronage, so no new quiddities pop up.
6-Current world, this time the gods are feeling particularly cruel and decide to create a sapient faction, the goblinoids, that are meant only to be killed for exp by the god's worshipers. The goblinoids find out there's no use putting their faith in any of the gods already around, but they refuse to just curl up and die, they have a hope for making a better future for themselves and so put their faith in one of their own, so for the first time in a zillion iterations, a new god ascends fully outside the patronage of any other god, and thus has his own quiddity. It was not fully deliberate, but the Dark One was the goblinoids only ray of hope when literally all the gods were against them.




The Dark One doesn't get a say because he's deliberately shut himself off from all the others. Thor made this very clear. It has nothing to do with how he ascended.

The Dark One shut himself off because the gods tried to hide the truth from him (and some were even planning to take him out) because of how he ascended (a member of the species that were meant to be exp fodder, forsaken by all the gods).





Why are you assuming the gods have any power over that?

If they created mortals for the first time, they would.



They didn't mention them because they're either not around anymore/are not important. Where they came from isn't pertinent to the story.

The gods primary objective is their own survival, so alternate food sources is pretty pertinent.




You are proposing a chicken and egg scenario in which the gods exist, because they rose up from mortals, who only exist because the gods created them, which only exist because mortals existed. Such thinking has a fundamental problem that should be obvious to see.

Only if you consider that mortals need gods to be created in the first place.:smallamused:



As Draconi said, the simplest answer is either the Gods spontaneously came into existence somehow or have sort of always "been" such that they don't really have an origin, but the current cycle being their origin just doesn't make any sense at all.

You're right, the cycle theory makes no sense at all, but my argument is that at the start there were no gods, only mortals.

Don't think chicken and egg, think simple farming. Grains started as a wild species, until we showed up and started planting and harvesting it in a controlled fashion. Sometimes we burn down grain fields, sometimes we build other stuff over them, but either way we didn't create grain in the first place.

[Rrmcklin]

Ok, let me try to summarize this:
1-First world, no gods.
2-Some people become really popular and start to be worshiped and spontaneously ascend as gods just like the Dark One.
3-There's four initial gods for four differentt quiddities, at that point everybody is worshiping one of them so any new ascenscions are done by people who already have a patron god and thus after ascending share their patron's quiddity.
4-World gets destroyed somehow, gods try to make a new world because they need mortal worship to survive, snarl happens.
5-Zillion iteration of world remaking. Note that assuming there's at least X new gods ascended by iteration, there should be x times a zillion new gods by the comic's time. But since there's less than an hundred, god survival rate isn't that good. Which makes sense since there's only so much worship you can harvest from a single planet worth of mortals. This means competition for mortal worship is fierce, gods that can't keep up when there's too many of them get wiped out until the numbers drop until there's a bit of leftover for new gods to ascend again, but always under one of the pantheon's patronage, so no new quiddities pop up.
6-Current world, this time the gods are feeling particularly cruel and decide to create a sapient faction, the goblinoids, that are meant only to be killed for exp by the god's worshipers. The goblinoids find out there's no use putting their faith in any of the gods already around, but they refuse to just curl up and die, they have a hope for making a better future for themselves and so put their faith in one of their own, so for the first time in a zillion iterations, a new god ascends fully outside the patronage of any other god, and thus has his own quiddity. It was not fully deliberate, but the Dark One was the goblinoids only ray of hope when literally all the gods were against them.


Which just comes with the issue of "where did those people come from in the first place?" that you seem to be (intentionally) overlooking. This isn't the real "world"/our universe, we have no indication that things that lead to creation and life for us (of which we still don't mostly know) could happen for them.





The Dark One shut himself off because the gods tried to hide the truth from him (and some were even planning to take him out) because of how he ascended (a member of the species that were meant to be exp fodder, forsaken by all the gods).

Why he did it doesn't change the fact that he did it.




If they created mortals for the first time, they would.

Baseless assumption.



The gods primary objective is their own survival, so alternate food sources is pretty pertinent.

Not if it doesn't exist anymore, which I posited at the beginning, which you are conveniently ignoring. You don't seem to understand that circumstances can change, and just because things used to be a certain way and let them survive, doesn't mean those same circumstances exist.




Only if you consider that mortals need gods to be created in the first place.:smallamused:


Which we have every reason to believe, and absolutely no reason to think otherwise. And you haven't provided one.




You're right, your cycle theory makes no sense at all, but my argument is that at the start there were no gods, only mortals.

Don't think chicken and egg, think simple farming. Grains started as a wild species, until we showed up and started planting and harvesting it in a controlled fashion. Sometimes we burn down grain fields, sometimes we build other stuff over them, but either way we didn't create grain in the first place.

As I mentioned before, still completely fails to address the idea of where the "grains" in this case came from at all. You can't have this both ways: you can't say "the gods need mortal worship so couldn't have existed without them" while also ignoring the part about "the mortals can only exist because of the gods combining Quiddity." Your analogy fails on all accounts.

But you seem to have your heels dug in the ground on this, so I don't think pointing any of this out matters.

[Draconi Redfir]

And if they had other food sources, other origins, why not mention them?

counter argument: Why mention them?

"What the gods used to eat" isn't really helpful in the whole "Defeating the Vampires / Snarl / Xykon / Dark One" plotline.


i'm pretty sure by "patronage" or whever it was Thor said, he means "with help". The Elven Gods didn't ascend into the Western Pantheon because the Elves also worshiped the Western gods, more likely they ascended because the Western gods saw potential in some Elven mortals and helped them ascend to godhood. The exact same thing COULD have happened with the Dark One, but none of the other gods took particular interest in him.

the Dark One is different because he ascended all on his own, none of the other gods did anything to help him or influence him in any way. The fact that Goblins were created for EXP probably doesn't matter too much.

[JustinKase]

Wondering if the Purple Quiddity exists due to the Dark One not belonging to any of the 3 other Pantheons. Seems like the other 'new gods/demi-gods' were taken in by the other various Pantheons becoming part of those Quiddity colors.

Or maybe the others that transcended already had an established color due to their prior worship to a particular Pantheon.

[deuterio12]

Which just comes with the issue of "where did those people come from in the first place?" that you seem to be (intentionally) overlooking. This isn't the real "world"/our universe, we have no indication that things that lead to creation and life for us (of which we still don't mostly know) could happen for them.

People still f*** and have children and their children seem to follow the usual laws of biology on inhereting genes so normal evolution is still in the table.




Why he did it doesn't change the fact that he did it.

What other choice did he have? Only to let himself be destroyed right away, in which case he wouldn't get to vote as well. Voting rights was never an option in the table for him.




Baseless assumption.

Again, what's your alternative? That the gods decided "Yeah, let's create a food source that can make us go insane"?




Not if it doesn't exist anymore, which I posited at the beginning, which you are conveniently ignoring. You don't seem to understand that circumstances can change, and just because things used to be a certain way and let them survive, doesn't mean those same circumstances exist.

No, you're the one who's claiming that gods always existed, while I'm precisely claiming that things used to be different (aka no gods).



Which we have every reason to believe, and absolutely no reason to think otherwise. And you haven't provided one.

Again, people still reproduce through normal means and children are different from their parents, all clear signs natural evolution is still on the table.



As I mentioned before, still completely fails to address the idea of where the "grains" in this case came from at all. You can't have this both ways: you can't say "the gods need mortal worship so couldn't have existed without them" while also ignoring the part about "the mortals can only exist because of the gods combining Quiddity." Your analogy fails on all accounts.

But you seem to have your heels dug in the ground on this, so I don't think pointing any of this out matters.

No, you're the one who has dug your heels in the ground, rejecting that no mortal has ever been born in the OoTS world without the gods doing anything.

Heck, Durkon found out recently he has a little bastard from a night of mortal passion, and we know that Thor and Loki were pretty disgusted when they saw their clerics of opposed faiths making out, so clearly the gods didn't bless that concemption, meaning natural biological reproduction is well outside their control.


counter argument: Why mention them?

"What the gods used to eat" isn't really helpful in the whole "Defeating the Vampires / Snarl / Xykon / Dark One" plotline.

Because the actual plotline is "the gods want food", and so alternative food sources are important.



i'm pretty sure by "patronage" or whever it was Thor said, he means "with help". The Elven Gods didn't ascend into the Western Pantheon because the Elves also worshiped the Western gods, more likely they ascended because the Western gods saw potential in some Elven mortals and helped them ascend to godhood. The exact same thing COULD have happened with the Dark One, but none of the other gods took particular interest in him.

the Dark One is different because he ascended all on his own, none of the other gods did anything to help him or influence him in any way. The fact that Goblins were created for EXP probably doesn't matter too much.

It matters, because the Dark One needed a source of worship big enough that wasn't already tied to any of the existing pantheons to develop his own quiddity.


Wondering if the Purple Quiddity exists due to the Dark One not belonging to any of the 3 other Pantheons. Seems like the other 'new gods/demi-gods' were taken in by the other various Pantheons becoming part of those Quiddity colors.

Or maybe the others that transcended already had an established color due to their prior worship to a particular Pantheon.

Indeed, if you're already tied to a god and ascend you end up with their quiddity, while the Dark One grew up in an enviroment that rejected all the existing gods and that gave the room to develop a new one.

[Wizard_Lizard]

Simple.
It existed because the plot needed it to!
oh.
You wanted a proper answer.....
sorry...

[Riftwolf]

Then why design the mortals in such a way that allows such dangerous feedback as Odin going senile?

Mortals have free will, or perhaps need free will to generate meaningful godly sustenance.

[factotum]

deuterio12, if the Gods were all created by mortals in world #1, where did the Snarl come from? Just curious how that fits into your theory.

[Jannoire]

Gods had an argument, destroyed World 1, made world 2 and thus created the Snarl

[D.One]

When Thor talks about the Outer Planes, he explains they are groups of thoughts/ideas that condensed to form a place. He even says the gods are also made of thoughts, and refers to his "divine singularity", so I think the first gods are exactly that: singularities of ideas, the same way a black hole is a singularity made of matter. They emerged/appeared when those ideas attracted each other and concentraded enough.

[Wizard_Lizard]

When Thor talks about the Outer Planes, he explains they are groups of thoughts/ideas that condensed to form a place. He even says the gods are also made of thoughts, and refers to his "divine singularity", so I think the first gods are exactly that: singularities of ideas, the same way a black hole is a singularity made of matter. They emerged/appeared when those ideas attracted each other and concentraded enough.

that sounds as though it makes sense...

[Dion]

that sounds as though it makes sense...

Of course, that raises the obvious question: where did the ideas come from?

Turtles?.


Gods had an argument, destroyed World 1, made world 2 and thus created the Snarl

But where did World 1 come from?

More turtles?

That’s a lot of turtles.

[woweedd]

Of course, that raises the obvious question: where did the ideas come from?

Probably turtles.
Cultural archetypes?

[Wizard_Lizard]

maybe the snarl destroyed their last food source?
Personally I think that the snarl is an embodiement of rich burlew....
Because, here me out....
The gods (Rich Burlew's creativity) created the first world (story), but he couldn't decide how to make it, and then scrapped (snarled) the idea.

The next world, Rich created with more planning, but even then, he grew tired of it, and snarled it
Each time, he becomes more invested in the story, and so it stays around longer.
He went through loads of ideas, and the graveyard in the astral plane could symbolize a file for all of his unfinished works.

It would even explain why the world is a prison for the snarl... He trapped himself into makibg it

But this idea, this world, has something new... some new source of inspiration, maybe something that he found within himself.

This idea, this story, this world may have what it takes to survive the snarl...

[KorvinStarmast]

But this idea, this world, has something new... some new source of inspiration, maybe something that he found within himself. An ice cold bottle of Grape Nehi (https://sodapopstop.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/soda-pop-stop-nehi-grape.png). Purple and very refreshing if you like a sweet soda drink with bubbles that sometimes go up your nose.

(When I was a kid, 1960's-ish, it was 15 cents for a bottle out of the vending machine).

Also a favorite drink of Radar O'Reilly from the TV series M*A*S*H

[D.One]

Of course, that raises the obvious question: where did the ideas come from?

Turtles?.

I'd go with the ideas being not "thoughts" the way we view them, but more like concepts, possibilities, something in the lines of "every thing that can be", "every concept that can exist someday".

But turtles would be a good second guess. Of course, we could ask where the turtles came from, and them you have to ask Splinter, not me :smalltongue:

[Dion]

Cultural archetypes?

But whose culture?

Suppose you have an infinite stack of turtles (which we know are the fundamental building blocks of every universe before gods come along and start making the sky).

Now, each individual turtle isn’t going to have a culture.

But, suppose each turtle can communicate with the turtle immediately above it, and the turtle immediately below it, and in the infinite expanse of time can communicate with every other turtle in the infinite stack by passing messages along, in a turtles slow and methodical way.

Can we assume that in this great, slow, and infinite conversation between this stack of turtles, there is eventually enough of a shared cultural understanding to bootstrap the universe?

[D.One]

But whose culture?

Suppose you have an infinite stack of turtles (which we know are the fundamental building blocks of every universe before gods come along and start making the sky).

Now, each individual turtle isn’t going to have a culture.

But, suppose each turtle can communicate with the turtle immediately above it, and the turtle immediately below it, and in the infinite expanse of time can communicate with every other turtle in the infinite stack by passing messages along, in a turtles slow and methodical way.

Can we assume that in this great, slow, and infinite conversation between this stack of turtles, there is eventually enough of a shared cultural understanding to bootstrap the universe?

No, because the turtles don't use boots. No bootstrap for them.:smallbiggrin:

[Wizard_Lizard]

Of course, that raises the obvious question: where did the ideas come from?

Turtles?.



But where did World 1 come from?

More turtles?

That’s a lot of turtles.

world turtles

[woweedd]

world turtles
If you will...And I will not.

[D.One]

world turtles

Lion-turtles. :smallwink:

[Draconi Redfir]

Because the actual plotline is "the gods want food", and so alternative food sources are important.


the plotline is ONE god wants food. the rest already have it.

if we're eating dinner together, and i'm trying to get your help in making my sister stop stealing my food, then that doesn't entitle you to know every meal I've ever eaten in history. i just don't want my food being stolen.

[KorvinStarmast]

the plotline is ONE god wants food. the rest already have it.

if we're eating dinner together, and i'm trying to get your help in making my sister stop stealing my food, then that doesn't entitle you to know every meal I've ever eaten in history. i just don't want my food being stolen. Does this lemon and clam casserole make me look fat? :smalleek:

[deuterio12]

the plotline is ONE god wants food. the rest already have it.

if we're eating dinner together, and i'm trying to get your help in making my sister stop stealing my food, then that doesn't entitle you to know every meal I've ever eaten in history. i just don't want my food being stolen.

That you consider it your food means you want the food too.:smallwink:

If you know about another source of food besides what's on the table right now, then that may just solve the issue.

Even if you think that source is depleted, always worth to check it.

In particular when your sister is getting ready to burn down your house just to gobble up whatever charred remains are left if she doesn't get food now.

[Goblin_Priest]

The gods are not omnipotent. They, too, follow cosmic rules that exist independently of them.

One such cosmic rule is that each god is attuned to a quiddity. But apparently, collectively, the gods of a pantheon have power over sharing it or not.

Another rule is belief can ascend mortals to godhood.

When the Dark One ascended, nobody wanted to share quiddity with him. As a god can't be without quiddity and gods can't prevent ascension, the universe had to grant him a new one.

[deuterio12]

The gods are not omnipotent. They, too, follow cosmic rules that exist independently of them.

One such cosmic rule is that each god is attuned to a quiddity. But apparently, collectively, the gods of a pantheon have power over sharing it or not.

Another rule is belief can ascend mortals to godhood.

Precisely, there are cosmic rules beyond the power of the gods, and those rules happen to give us the origin of those gods-ascended mortals through belief.



When the Dark One ascended, nobody wanted to share quiddity with him. As a god can't be without quiddity and gods can't prevent ascension, the universe had to grant him a new one.

And the reason the gods didn't want to share any with him was because he was just a filthy goblinoid that was only meant to be killed for exp. How dare he ascend?

[Draconi Redfir]

If you know about another source of food besides what's on the table right now, then that may just solve the issue.

Even if you think that source is depleted, always worth to check it.


here's the thing though. we're at a resturaunt, and we're in our late 20's or so.


so knowing what i ate when i was TWO isn't really helpful at all. and also none of your business.

[deuterio12]

here's the thing though. we're at a resturaunt, and we're in our late 20's or so.


so knowing what i ate when i was TWO isn't really helpful at all. and also none of your business.

So wait, you could already provide your own food at two years old?

Because I'm pretty sure that you would have somebody else giving you food back then, in which case knowing who was doing it would be pretty useful in stopping your sister burning down whatever's place you're eating at.

And yes it is my business knowing how we ended in this messy situation in the first place and whetever there isn't a better alternative.

[ijuinkun]

Of course, that raises the obvious question: where did the ideas come from?

Turtles?.



But where did World 1 come from?

More turtles?

That’s a lot of turtles.

Indeed. Can thoughts exist in a universe that had never had any thinkers to think them? Can there be dreams without a dreamer?

And if the OoTS gods coalesced spontaneously from the ideas within the Astral Plane, then why, given an infinity of timelessness and all possible ideas, did only a few dozen gods of four quiddities form and not all possible gods and quiddities? What of the Hindu Gods? The Egyptian Gods? The Aztec Gods? etc. Why does the Southern Pantheon contain only the Twelve and not any other Chinese/Japanese gods?

[Wizard_Lizard]

you know, never mind my post on deep meaningful philosophy lets talk about turtles.

[Dion]

Even if you think that source is depleted, always worth to check it.

Do you know how your “hunger” is tracked in some video games, and if you don’t eat enough you die?

And do you know how you usually start those games reasonably full, so that you don’t have to immediately scrounge around for a tin of spinach and a can opener?

When you’re about on level 20 and you realize you’ve somehow run out of food and are about to die, what happens?

Do you think: “What was I eating before the game started? I should be eating that now!”

Or do you think: “If i polymorph into a rust monster, can I eat this extra armor?”

The current problems aren’t going to be solved by the existing gods eating whatever foods existed before existence itself existed.

No, the current problems will be solved by Hel zapping herself with a wand of polymorph and trying to eat her own armor.

[deuterio12]

Well, the current problems aren’t going to be solved by the existing gods eating whatever foods existed before existence itself existed.


Indeed, can't eat what never existed in the first place. :smallwink:

The only food that ever existed for gods is faith/belief/worship, meaning it needed to already be there before the first god came to be. There's no paradox, just that mortals came first, and you just need to look at a science book to learn how. Hint: it includes f****** for making babies, which is a confirmed thing in the comic. Mortals can multiply just fine by themselves.

And mortals can also make gods.:smallamused:

[Fyraltari]

Or the Gods spawned with their ‘‘bellies’’ full.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Or the Gods spawned with their ‘‘bellies’’ full.

Or we are dealing with a standard case of scaffolding evolution. The primordial gods didn't need all these things to survive, but with a rich diet, they've grown to such complexity that they can no longer survive with the mere old methods of sustenance.

There was a time when we could filter air from water through our gills. That doesn't mean we still can, or can easily undo the changes that have brought us here.

Grey Wolf

[KorvinStarmast]

Indeed, can't eat what never existed in the first place. :smallwink:

The only food that ever existed for gods is faith/belief/worship, meaning it needed to already be there before the first god came to be. In-world and in-fiction, OoTS the deities of the four quidities preceded the (many) worlds. Which leads us to ...
Or we are dealing with a standard case of scaffolding evolution. The primordial gods didn't need all these things to survive, but with a rich diet, they've grown to such complexity that they can no longer survive with the mere old methods of sustenance.

There was a time when we could filter air from water through our gills. That doesn't mean we still can, or can easily undo the changes that have brought us here. This is based on the idea that although the deities may have formed from concepts in the Astral plane, they do have at least some ability to change, albeit slowly or to a limited extent, based on how they interact with that connected to them.

For example, they learned teamwork as a survival skill when put under the stress of the Snarl showing up.

[Fyraltari]

Or we are dealing with a standard case of scaffolding evolution. The primordial gods didn't need all these things to survive, but with a rich diet, they've grown to such complexity that they can no longer survive with the mere old methods of sustenance.

There was a time when we could filter air from water through our gills. That doesn't mean we still can, or can easily undo the changes that have brought us here.

Grey Wolf

Yeah, but unlike us these would be the same individuals at both point of their evolution rather than lung-people being descended from gill-people.

...

Great, now I want a fantasy race of fish-creatures calling humans lung-people.

[KorvinStarmast]

Yeah, but unlike us these would be the same individuals at both point of their evolution rather than lung-people being descended from gill-people.

...

Great, now I want a fantasy race of fish-creatures calling humans lung-people. D&D already beat you to it.
Sahaguin.
Sea Elves
Merfolk
Tritons
...

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Yeah, but unlike us these would be the same individuals at both point of their evolution rather than lung-people being descended from gill-people.

You tell that to frogs. Or to adult lactose intolerant people.

More seriously, the gods clearly do change, sometimes radically, world after world. They are subject to evolutionary pressures, just not natural selection.

Grey Wolf

[Fyraltari]

You tell that to frogs. Or to adult lactose intolerant people.

More seriously, the gods clearly do change, sometimes radically, world after world. They are subject to evolutionary pressures, just not natural selection.

Grey Wolf
That’s fair.

Edit: Actually they are subject to natural selection as Thor states that some gods did not survive their native world. It’s random mutations they lack.

[Dion]

There's no paradox:

You can’t set up a situation, call it a “paradox”, and then solve the “paradox” by creating exactly the same paradox.

We know the universe exists, and some mortals were created by gods, and some gods were created by mortals. Beyond that, we don’t know, and since it’s a fictional world we have no way to perform experiments on any hypothesis we might have, so all we have is wild guesses.

You can’t go around shouting “ha ha, paradox, I destroy your computer!” like you’re Captain Kirk and expect to be taken seriously.

[RifleAvenger]

You tell that to frogs. Or to adult lactose intolerant people.

More seriously, the gods clearly do change, sometimes radically, world after world. They are subject to evolutionary pressures, just not natural selection.

Grey WolfAlso, if the gods are created from collectives of memes, it's possible that those meme collectives might be internally competitive. This could lead to a variant of natural selection where the most successful conception of a deity goes on to shape that deity.

In any case, you have the right of it. Canalization and specialization are very much things in evolution, and non-generalist taxa are usually optimized for the environment/ecosystem in which they currently exist. In a belief-rich environment, deities that are dependent on it, but more powerful for it, would be favored over self-sufficient generalist deities.

[RatElemental]

Guys, guys the origin of the gods was covered in comic.

The cosmos that the various OotS worlds were created in by the gods was itself created by a figure inspired by the original creator and the gods were probably created at that time by the creator to set everything in motion. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0644.html)

IE: Rich Burlew created the gods both in and out of universe.

[Wizard_Lizard]

maybe the snarl destroyed their last food source?
Personally I think that the snarl is an embodiement of rich burlew....
Because, here me out....
The gods (Rich Burlew's creativity) created the first world (story), but he couldn't decide how to make it, and then scrapped (snarled) the idea.

The next world, Rich created with more planning, but even then, he grew tired of it, and snarled it
Each time, he becomes more invested in the story, and so it stays around longer.
He went through loads of ideas, and the graveyard in the astral plane could symbolize a file for all of his unfinished works.

It would even explain why the world is a prison for the snarl... He trapped himself into making it

But this idea, this world, has something new... some new source of inspiration, maybe something that he found within himself.

This idea, this story, this world may have what it takes to survive the snarl...

I still think that this might be the case....

[Razade]

Yeah, the whole question seems...strange on its face. Quiddity seems to be extant. It doesn't seem to need an origin. It's just part of Divinity. We aren't ever told if the Gods pulled into other Pantheons had their own or if they somehow started with Quiddity from an existing color by merit of belief. I can only conclude the following.

1. Quiddity is a part of the Divine world. It comes in shades and those shades allow for complexity.

2. Quiddity is malleable by belief.

3. We have only one example of a Quiddity not being the colors we're familiar with.

4. We have multiple examples of Gods raised from mortal life.

5. We have no indication their Quiddity before they were brought in.

6. We know that if they weren't brought in by other Pantheons, the Gods raised from Mortal Stock simply couldn't survive.

7. We therefore cannot rule out that other Mortal made Gods had other Quiddity Colors, refused to join up with the other Gods and were killed when the world was destroyed. We know that there were such Gods by word of God after all. How could they have died if they shared a Quiddity with the existing Pantheons?


Conclusion: We don't know enough to even propose an origin with anything close to approaching a hypothesis let alone pin it down.

[HorizonWalker]

We know there hasn't been a new Quiddity until now because Thor told us so, and Rich has gone on record as saying that you can almost always trust what his characters say out loud as being true, so long as it isn't a very obvious lie. This is because dialogue is his main means of exposition, and he doesn't seem to be fond of the unreliable narrator trope; if he's telling you something through dialogue, either it's true, or it's a lie for a very good narrative reason you're going to see.

As for where all the mortal-ascended gods have gone, my guess is that they tend to wither and die off over time, because they're not as established as the "main" gods, and so either don't survive the interim period between worlds because they don't have a backlog of souls built up to sustain them for that long, or they do survive that interim period, but simply can't establish a new following in the new world because they don't know how; the first time was a fluke.

[Draconi Redfir]

We know there hasn't been a new Quiddity until now because Thor told us so, and Rich has gone on record as saying that you can almost always trust what his characters say out loud as being true, so long as it isn't a very obvious lie. This is because dialogue is his main means of exposition, and he doesn't seem to be fond of the unreliable narrator trope; if he's telling you something through dialogue, either it's true, or it's a lie for a very good narrative reason you're going to see.

As for where all the mortal-ascended gods have gone, my guess is that they tend to wither and die off over time, because they're not as established as the "main" gods, and so either don't survive the interim period between worlds because they don't have a backlog of souls built up to sustain them for that long, or they do survive that interim period, but simply can't establish a new following in the new world because they don't know how; the first time was a fluke.

^ This, basically.

in other words, if a world exists for one thousand years, and for 900 of those years you only have the standard northern pantheon, (Odin, thor, loki, etc) and then in the last 100 years, "Balugo the Strange" ascends into the north, there likely won't be enough time for Balugo to adjust to godhood, he'd still be a young, almost infant god by the time the world comes to a close. Fewer mortals may even know he exists, and even if everyone knows he exists, he'd only have access to 100 years worth of souls, while the other gods have 1000 years worth of souls running around in their respective afterlives.

Ascended gods either have to ascend REALLY early, or somehow get a lot of souls all at once. It's possible the Dark One got this since he has all three branches of Goblinoids under him, and two of the three seem to reproduce and die in high numbers, but it's hard to say right now if he'd survive to the next world or not.

[Malphegor]

Simple.
It existed because the plot needed it to!
oh.
You wanted a proper answer.....
sorry...

With this comic's penchant for meta? That could be an answer. Maybe the plot itself is some kind of entity? Or the call to adventure itself... I dunno. Would take a Rich-er man than I to really know what that would look like

[Dion]

Suppose the world represents a D&D campaign, and The Snarl represents every D&D campaigns tendency to eventually fall apart.

Then in this scenario, The Dark One is Ed Greenwood, and the Purple Quiddity is Forgotten Realms.

[woweedd]

Suppose the world represents a D&D campaign, and The Snarl represents every D&D campaigns tendency to eventually fall apart.

Then in this scenario, The Dark One is Ed Greenwood, and the Purple Quiddity is Forgotten Realms.
That is being too generous to Ed Greenwood. I'd have gone with the OGl as the Purple Quiddity.

[Squire Doodad]

I imagine that Purple Quiddity (or rather, any new kind) is essentially being devoid of any other religious teachings. Perhaps it goes further to even rejecting the other pantheons because of justified hatred, which would be kind of sad but also interesting since it means the Gods specifically cannot cause a new Quiddity to appear.

[Mandor]

I imagine that Purple Quiddity (or rather, any new kind) is essentially being devoid of any other religious teachings. Perhaps it goes further to even rejecting the other pantheons because of justified hatred, which would be kind of sad but also interesting since it means the Gods specifically cannot cause a new Quiddity to appear.

Maybe the Dark One is astonishingly good with electric guitars, and it's literally a Purple Haze.

[Wizard_Lizard]

Suppose the world represents a D&D campaign, and The Snarl represents every D&D campaigns tendency to eventually fall apart.

Then in this scenario, The Dark One is Ed Greenwood, and the Purple Quiddity is Forgotten Realms.

that's basically what I said.....

[deuterio12]

I imagine that Purple Quiddity (or rather, any new kind) is essentially being devoid of any other religious teachings. Perhaps it goes further to even rejecting the other pantheons because of justified hatred, which would be kind of sad but also interesting since it means the Gods specifically cannot cause a new Quiddity to appear.

Oh, they can, and it's pretty easy to boot.

They just need to engineer another faction they'll completely forsake, teaching their worshipers that the new faction exists only to be killed for fun and profit.:smallwink:

Just the tiny problem that the new god has all the reasons to distrust the other gods, but meh, details.

[Draconi Redfir]

honestly i don't think the fact that it's purple has any significance other then "it's not yellow / red/ blue / green". It's something new. Had it been a lizardman instead of a goblin, or even just a different goblin altogether, it may have been a different colour entirely. Purple is just what they got.

[Wizard_Lizard]

honestly i don't think the fact that it's purple has any significance other then "it's not yellow / red/ blue / green". It's something new. Had it been a lizardman instead of a goblin, or even just a different goblin altogether, it may have been a different colour entirely. Purple is just what they got.

but purple is a mix of blue and red... the azurites and the western gods...

[HorizonWalker]

but purple is a mix of blue and red... the azurites and the western gods...
And? The Eastern Pantheon was green, a mix of Northern yellow and Southern blue. Quiddity isn't really color the way we think of it, with all those attachments to color theory. Color's just the easy metaphor because quiddity is directly observable with our eyes as a color.

[deuterio12]

The Eastern Pantheon was green, a mix of Northern yellow and Southern blue.

Oh you're right! The Eastern Pantheon was actually created by the North and South one! And when they started to get too uppity the other gods designed the Snarl as a weapon to wipe them out!

This is, it was always quite suspicious how the Eastern Pantheon got wiped to the last god while the others didn't suffer a single casualitity. Suspicious and convenient. One less pantheon to share food with.

[factotum]

And? The Eastern Pantheon was green, a mix of Northern yellow and Southern blue.

Yellow and blue only combine to form green when you're using dyes (an absorption media). If you're using light emissions (which quiddities most definitely are, from Thor's description) then yellow and blue would actually be more like white, because yellow is a combination of red and green and red, green and blue together is white.

[HorizonWalker]

Yellow and blue only combine to form green when you're using dyes (an absorption media). If you're using light emissions (which quiddities most definitely are, from Thor's description) then yellow and blue would actually be more like white, because yellow is a combination of red and green and red, green and blue together is white.

Look, if someone's claiming that something being purple has to mean that they're a combination of something blue and something red, then I'm going to use the same theoretical framework they're using to show why their conclusion is absurd, otherwise I'm not actually addressing what they said. If you wanna go after anyone, go after the guy claiming purple has to be a combo of red and blue; additively, red and blue combine to make magenta, which I'm pretty sure The Dark One is not. (I am legit colorblind, though, so I could be wrong on that.)

[AvatarVecna]

My understanding was partially born out of the knowledge that other beings have ascended to godhood within this world (some unnamed elves IIRC): the other mortals that ascended to godhood were tied in with some pantheon or another, if not through direct worship than through being ideologically tied in morals and ethics with certain parts of that pantheon. In a standard D&D world, the lesser races of the planet, if one ever became important enough to ascend upon death, would probably also end up subsumed into the pantheon most connected with their ideals. The only way that wouldn't happen is if those lesser races of mortals ideals were explicitly "**** the gods because they're responsible for the problems our species has had since forever"...and that's exactly what happened. In Thor's own words, this time around they tried out "self-aware parody fantasy world", which has the disparity among races that's baked into the genre but doesn't even attempt to hide the contempt the very fabric of the world has for the lesser races, and those lesser races are "self-aware" of their relative worthlessness in the system, and the fact that things exist the way they do because the gods made it so. It was only in a self-aware fantasy world that a mortal from the lesser races could gain the admiration of his people and unify them behind a cause that is so explicitly incapable of aligning with the existing deities and pantheons that, upon ascending, he couldn't fit into their existing power structure, and had to become his own pantheon built on the ideal of "**** every other pantheon".

The fact that OOTS is a self-aware parody is a plot-point that is responsible for this method of defeating the Snarl to have arisen in this very world. Now they just have to deal with a god who's special quiddity comes from his "**** every other pantheon" ideal into cooperating with literally every other pantheon to take down the entity he's currently planning to murder/intimidate them with.

[Kish]

Look, if someone's claiming that something being purple has to mean that they're a combination of something blue and something red, then I'm going to use the same theoretical framework they're using to show why their conclusion is absurd, otherwise I'm not actually addressing what they said. If you wanna go after anyone, go after the guy claiming purple has to be a combo of red and blue; additively, red and blue combine to make magenta, which I'm pretty sure The Dark One is not. (I am legit colorblind, though, so I could be wrong on that.)
I think factotum's point is that the primary colors of light are blue, green, and red, not blue, yellow, and red like paints. The question would be not which gods combined to form the Eastern Pantheon, but which gods combined to form the Northern Pantheon.

You're, of course, right that saying the Dark One's quiddity has to be a combination of that of the Southern and Western Pantheons is silly.

[HorizonWalker]

I think factotum's point is that the primary colors of light are blue, green, and red, not blue, yellow, and red like paints. The question would be not which gods combined to form the Eastern Pantheon, but which gods combined to form the Northern Pantheon.

You're, of course, right that saying the Dark One's quiddity has to be a combination of that of the Southern and Western Pantheons is silly.
Factotum's point is actually one I addressed even before he made it; Quiddity isn't actually color. It expresses as, among other things, a color, but it does not operate by any of the rules of color theory, and so his argument that Quiddity obeys additive color theory is still as wrong as someone else's argument that it obeys opaque paint color theory.

[Wizard_Lizard]

I think factotum's point is that the primary colors of light are blue, green, and red, not blue, yellow, and red like paints. The question would be not which gods combined to form the Eastern Pantheon, but which gods combined to form the Northern Pantheon.

You're, of course, right that saying the Dark One's quiddity has to be a combination of that of the Southern and Western Pantheons is silly.

yes. Isay sillystuff.

[martianmister]

I wonder, is there anyone who could fill the place of orange quiddity?

[Draconi Redfir]

My understanding was partially born out of the knowledge that other beings have ascended to godhood within this world (some unnamed elves IIRC): the other mortals that ascended to godhood were tied in with some pantheon or another, if not through direct worship than through being ideologically tied in morals and ethics with certain parts of that pantheon. In a standard D&D world, the lesser races of the planet, if one ever became important enough to ascend upon death, would probably also end up subsumed into the pantheon most connected with their ideals. The only way that wouldn't happen is if those lesser races of mortals ideals were explicitly "**** the gods because they're responsible for the problems our species has had since forever"...and that's exactly what happened. In Thor's own words, this time around they tried out "self-aware parody fantasy world", which has the disparity among races that's baked into the genre but doesn't even attempt to hide the contempt the very fabric of the world has for the lesser races, and those lesser races are "self-aware" of their relative worthlessness in the system, and the fact that things exist the way they do because the gods made it so. It was only in a self-aware fantasy world that a mortal from the lesser races could gain the admiration of his people and unify them behind a cause that is so explicitly incapable of aligning with the existing deities and pantheons that, upon ascending, he couldn't fit into their existing power structure, and had to become his own pantheon built on the ideal of "**** every other pantheon".

The fact that OOTS is a self-aware parody is a plot-point that is responsible for this method of defeating the Snarl to have arisen in this very world. Now they just have to deal with a god who's special quiddity comes from his "**** every other pantheon" ideal into cooperating with literally every other pantheon to take down the entity he's currently planning to murder/intimidate them with.

The exact phrase Thor used was "without any Sponsorship (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1142.html) by any existing pantheon"

This suggests to me that in most cases, a pantheon is directly involved in helping with ascension. Not necessarily just sharing ideals or having the ascended god having at one point worshiped a particular pantheon. The gods themselves see someone of potential and actively help them rise up to godhood, sharing just enough power to push them over the threshold and get settled in their new plane of existence. Had say, Rat from the Southern pantheon taken notice of the Dark One's goblin campaign and lended his support after seeing the Goblins following TDO and killing in his name, then TDO likely would have ascended into the blue pantheon, and probably ascended much sooner then he did in the current timeline.

Sponsorship isn't "This person agrees with me therefore we are the same", Sponsorship is "This person needs help. i will help them."

[deuterio12]

Sponsorship isn't "This person agrees with me therefore we are the same", Sponsorship is "This person needs help. i will help them."

"And then discard them like a sack of potatoes when they've outlived their usefulness."

Remember that a zillion worlds destroyed means a zillion times X "sponsored" gods that got wiped out otherwise there would be a lot of gods out there.

So the old gods were knowingly "helping" people to ascend knowing full well their chance of survival as new gods was virtually zero (while mortal souls get to reincarnate in the new world).

[Grey_Wolf_c]

(while mortal souls get to reincarnate in the new world).

No they don't.

Grey Wolf

[Rrmcklin]

And we also have no confirmation that all gods that have ascended from previous worlds have died. Thor implies it happens frequently enough, but that's doesn't confirm none have never made the benchmark to survive on.

[deuterio12]

No they don't.


Thor confirms the mortal souls can be saved from one world to the other, and they've gotta to do something with them, so even if they're not reincarnated then it only means they get to enjoy multiple afterlifes of free sex and booze and whatnot.


And we also have no confirmation that all gods that have ascended from previous worlds have died. Thor implies it happens frequently enough, but that's doesn't confirm none have never made the benchmark to survive on.

If there's been a billion destroyed worlds and assuming even only one sponsored god before destruction average, even a 1% survival rate would mean 10 millions of gods should be around.

There's less than a hundred gods after countless destroyed worlds. The math isn't pretty no matter how you look at it.

[factotum]

Thor confirms the mortal souls can be saved from one world to the other, and they've gotta to do something with them, so even if they're not reincarnated then it only means they get to enjoy multiple afterlifes of free sex and booze and whatnot.

The way the D&D cosmology works is that souls will eventually merge into their afterlife plane--after all, in D&D terms what could be a better outcome for a Lawful Good character than becoming part of the essence of Law and Good? Given how long it presumably takes to create a new world, all the souls left over from the old one have probably been subsumed into their home planes before the new one is ready for people to move in.

Also, where does Thor confirm that souls are carried over from one world to another? He's confirmed that sometimes the souls on a world are saved from the Snarl before it's destroyed, but I don't recall him ever saying what happens to those souls.

[Draconi Redfir]

"And then discard them like a sack of potatoes when they've outlived their usefulness."

Remember that a zillion worlds destroyed means a zillion times X "sponsored" gods that got wiped out otherwise there would be a lot of gods out there.

So the old gods were knowingly "helping" people to ascend knowing full well their chance of survival as new gods was virtually zero (while mortal souls get to reincarnate in the new world).

Well it's not like they were actively TRYING to get these new gods killed. they were probably trying everything they could to help them reach the next world every time, and just failing. Or maybe there's a point of no return where someone will be on the verge of ascension, and it's either reach godhood, or be destroyed by their own power.

Heck, maybe some ascended gods DID survive their native world being destroyed, but then died one or two worlds down the line. Casualties of the snarl, or some ambitious mortals who got hold of a powerful mcguffin, who knows?

[Wizard_Lizard]

The way the D&D cosmology works is that souls will eventually merge into their afterlife plane--after all, in D&D terms what could be a better outcome for a Lawful Good character than becoming part of the essence of Law and Good? Given how long it presumably takes to create a new world, all the souls left over from the old one have probably been subsumed into their home planes before the new one is ready for people to move in.

Also, where does Thor confirm that souls are carried over from one world to another? He's confirmed that sometimes the souls on a world are saved from the Snarl before it's destroyed, but I don't recall him ever saying what happens to those souls.

yes but what about the individualistic chaotic good types?

[deuterio12]

The way the D&D cosmology works is that souls will eventually merge into their afterlife plane--after all, in D&D terms what could be a better outcome for a Lawful Good character than becoming part of the essence of Law and Good? Given how long it presumably takes to create a new world, all the souls left over from the old one have probably been subsumed into their home planes before the new one is ready for people to move in.

I'm pretty sure D&D cosmology has been thrown out the window long ago between Snarl and only 3 pantheons of gods (plus the Dark One), one of said pantheons being the twelve gods based of the chinese zodiac, and the whole quiddity thing that is central to the plot and has no D&D equivalent at all then the gods making bets about who gets which souls like they're just some gaming club.

Then some D&D cosmologies have the petitioners become the outsiders of those planes (like lemures who can eventually "promote" into higher fiends) or plain furniture according to earlier editions, which we've seen no sign of happening.



Also, where does Thor confirm that souls are carried over from one world to another? He's confirmed that sometimes the souls on a world are saved from the Snarl before it's destroyed, but I don't recall him ever saying what happens to those souls.

If they're bothering to save them, it's because there's some other purpose for them.


Well it's not like they were actively TRYING to get these new gods killed. they were probably trying everything they could to help them reach the next world every time, and just failing. Or maybe there's a point of no return where someone will be on the verge of ascension, and it's either reach godhood, or be destroyed by their own power.

The Dark One managed to ascend just fine with no sponsorship while the gods were all snickering at him.

Anyway just saying, there's only so much faith/worship to go around, Hel herself pretty pissed off about not having enough souls, and new gods are just more mouths to feed from the same limited harvest of mortals.

[RatElemental]

Thor confirms the mortal souls can be saved from one world to the other, and they've gotta to do something with them, so even if they're not reincarnated then it only means they get to enjoy multiple afterlifes of free sex and booze and whatnot.



If there's been a billion destroyed worlds and assuming even only one sponsored god before destruction average, even a 1% survival rate would mean 10 millions of gods should be around.

There's less than a hundred gods after countless destroyed worlds. The math isn't pretty no matter how you look at it.

Well some worlds lasted what, a few days? You need to take into account the incidence of worlds lasting long enough for gods to ascend, then of those how many worlds actually have gods ascend, and then you can talk about incidence of ascended gods surviving the period between worlds. If .0000000001% of worlds even have gods ascend, then the odds of new gods making it could be better without the outer planes being lousy with them.

And given how long it's taken for a new quiddity to emerge, I think the odds of a world managing to create new gods in the first place are probably pretty low.

[HorizonWalker]

If they're bothering to save them, it's because there's some other purpose for them.
It's because the gods don't want to let all those souls go to waste. Those souls are their food, y'know?

Also, in some cases, "compassion and respect for the sanctity of life" and all, but for the non-Good gods, it's because souls are food and most people are smart enough to avoid wasting food right before a disaster is going to prevent them from getting more of it.

[Wizard_Lizard]

What a god ascended with sponsorship from all three pantheons?

[Fyraltari]

What a god ascended with sponsorship from all three pantheons?

If all pantheons could agree about stuff like that, they wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with.

Edit: Besides, seeing as the last divine being with several divine essences supermurdered an entire Panthéon I don’t think they are keen on experimenting with that.

[Anymage]

Isn't Word of Rich that dead people can't meaningfully grow or change, except to eventually become more and more like the plane to the point of merging with it? So while on some level the memories and soul-stuff of the deceased is still there, it isn't in any form that could be recognized as a human(oid) soul anymore. People "saved" when the gods pull the plug early do get an afterlife instead of oblivion, but that's it.

On that note, my unsupported headcanon for gods of past worlds is that they can end up merging with other gods if what made them truly individual ceased to be relevant, and if they share pantheonic quiddity. If a god of bee-people magic from the world of anthromorphic animals joined the northern pantheon, the lack of bee people in the interim would cause them to merge with the general northern god of magic. (Who would retain the memories and personality of said bee people god, but those would be outweighed by the memories and personality of Odin.) Gods who can merge do, gods who can't merge are at high risk of starving to evaporation. Which granted, is more about explaining what happened to gods of past worlds without getting too crapsack than it is a solution for a god of an entirely new pantheon.

[Dion]

Hmm... what does happen to dead gods, I wonder?

My own personal headcannon is this: One of three things probably happen.

Some gods are simply erased, like the eastern pantheon, and perhaps what was planned for TDO.

Other gods refuse to die. Long after their worshippers are gone, forgotten gods dream of themselves in demiplanes of their own creation, beyond the edges of space and time. Maybe shamans will visit, or maybe mad cultists might worship them, but mostly they’re just forgotten memories. Imagine xykon sleeping in his astral fortress for a billion billion years.

But most gods, I assume, just die. If a god has a soul, the soul goes wherever souls go.

Dvalin, when he dies, will go where dwarves go when they die. I don’t see any reason to assume that the afterlife is cruelly snatched away from Dvalin just because he happened to be really, really good at being the dwarven king.

[Fyraltari]

I mean Dvalin is most likely living in his afterlife of choice. He just happens to be in charge and there’s a possibility he will never fade away.

[RatElemental]

Hmm... what does happen to dead gods, I wonder?

My own personal headcannon is this: One of three things probably happen.

Some gods are simply erased, like the eastern pantheon, and perhaps what was planned for TDO.

Other gods refuse to die. Long after their worshippers are gone, forgotten gods dream of themselves in demiplanes of their own creation, beyond the edges of space and time. Maybe shamans will visit, or maybe mad cultists might worship them, but mostly they’re just forgotten memories. Imagine xykon sleeping in his astral fortress for a billion billion years.

But most gods, I assume, just die. If a god has a soul, the soul goes wherever souls go.

Dvalin, when he dies, will go where dwarves go when they die. I don’t see any reason to assume that the afterlife is cruelly snatched away from Dvalin just because he happened to be really, really good at being the dwarven king.

Well in normal 3.5 lore, a dead god becomes a vestige if I recall correctly. I think dead gods are also one of the possible sources of power for ur-priests.

I expect those factoids to only be relevant to oots insofar as the giant might casually say "sure why not" when posed them in a question, because I don't think we're going to see any gods die in the comic. Well, other than the ones the Snarl killed, but they probably just ceased to exist entirely the same way a mortal killed by the snarl does.

[deuterio12]

Isn't Word of Rich that dead people can't meaningfully grow or change, except to eventually become more and more like the plane to the point of merging with it?

If Rich said so, then he's contradicting himself since Roy learns and grows a lot while dead, including unlocking a new uber sword move.


Well some worlds lasted what, a few days? You need to take into account the incidence of worlds lasting long enough for gods to ascend, then of those how many worlds actually have gods ascend, and then you can talk about incidence of ascended gods surviving the period between worlds. If .0000000001% of worlds even have gods ascend, then the odds of new gods making it could be better without the outer planes being lousy with them.

The current world has multiple "sponsored" ascended gods so the rate of god creation seems pretty good as long as the world doesn't blow up right away.



And given how long it's taken for a new quiddity to emerge, I think the odds of a world managing to create new gods in the first place are probably pretty low.

No, it was just that for a new quiddity you needed a non-"sponsored" god that wasn't already connected/tainted to a previous quiddity.

And every time there was a promising mortal, the gods were all over them.


It's because the gods don't want to let all those souls go to waste. Those souls are their food, y'know?

Also, in some cases, "compassion and respect for the sanctity of life" and all, but for the non-Good gods, it's because souls are food and most people are smart enough to avoid wasting food right before a disaster is going to prevent them from getting more of it.

But to eat food you need to, well, eat it. So how does that even work? Do gods just gobble them up now and then when the other souls aren't looking? Is each soul an infinite battery that keeps feeding a god for eternity? Then shouldn't the number of souls be going up in which case either they should be able to sustain a lot more gods or the gods should become stronger after each destruction after making sure there's no rivals? Or do souls have expiration dates and eventually stop pumping energy?

And more important, how do the gods even populate a new world?

If the gods can just create new souls out of nowhere, why do they need souls for sustenance?

That's why I suggested the souls reincarnate between destructions. Like harvest seeds, once a new world/field is prepared, the gods "plant" new souls they had in storage so they'll get to multiplying and producing more souls.

Because if the gods can just create food/souls out of nothing, it completely defeats the purpose of needing worship and stuff. Hel could just make more of her own food instead of squabling with the other gods for it.

[hroþila]

If Rich said so, then he's contradicting himself since Roy learns and grows a lot while dead, including unlocking a new uber sword move.
It was explicitly stated that it's worth bugger-all unless he spends a feat on it, i.e. unless he levels up and learns it in the mortal world.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

If Rich said so, then he's contradicting himself since Roy learns and grows a lot while dead, including unlocking a new uber sword move
No he didn't. He had to be alive to learn it (i.e. spend the feat).


But to eat food you need to, well, eat it. So how does that even work?
Soul merges with the alignment plane, alignment plane sustains the god.


Is each soul an infinite battery that keeps feeding a god for eternity?
No, souls are not infinite. They eventually merge with the alignment plane.


And more important, how do the gods even populate a new world?

If the gods can just create new souls out of nowhere, why do they need souls for sustenance?
The gods don't make souls. Souls are generated by the living beings, as they develop and grow, both personally and spiritually. They are batteries: slowly charging as they live, discharging when dead.


That's why I suggested the souls reincarnate between destructions. Like harvest seeds, once a new world/field is prepared, the gods "plant" new souls they had in storage so they'll get to multiplying and producing more souls.
Not how it works. Once the soul is dead, they just get absorbed.


Because if the gods can just create food/souls out of nothing, it completely defeats the purpose of needing worship and stuff. Hel could just make more of her own food instead of squabling with the other gods for it.
Thus, they don't and can't.

Grey Wolf

[Squire Doodad]

If Rich said so, then he's contradicting himself since Roy learns and grows a lot while dead, including unlocking a new uber sword move.

You seem to have completely missed the point- aside from the fact that most of one's time in the afterlife seems to be a large, inviting (or agonizing for the other end) blur, it isn't that people can't benefit from the afterlife, its that people cannot change who they are when they are dead. Roy enters as Roy, LG. He meets his baby brother (who is still a baby, by the way), his mother, father and grandfather. He learns the basics of the Spellsplinter, and even when he leaves he gets his subconscious closure vis a vis his lil' bro. However, Roy is still Roy. Roy is still the same alignment he was before he died, and the fundamental aspects of who he is (Greenhilt, Fighter, former/current OotS leader) remain the same. You can have a person who improves upon themselves while they are dead, but not in a way that changes who they are. A change can be fast-tracked, but you won't have someone enter the afterlife one way and immediately exit another.

A mortal CAN apparently acquire knowledge that transfers over to the living world, but unless they do something with the knowledge (like get a feat) then it has no real effect.



No, it was just that for a new quiddity you needed a non-"sponsored" god that wasn't already connected/tainted to a previous quiddity.

And every time there was a promising mortal, the gods were all over them.

This sounds about right, though we don't know enough about the Elven gods to know about how their gods came in. For all we know the Elven gods WERE unique beings that spontaneously arose out of nothing (Banjo/Giggles are, assuming they are their own Gods), and that the Dark One is something remarkably rare.




*snippity*
Um, no.

Souls are not infinite, they sort of emanate energy that Gods absorb until they merge with their relevant plane.

Gods make mortals by working together. If Hel wanted to make food for herself, she'd need to get help from another pantheon, say from Ishtar or Rat. And without the Godsmoot or a similar construct, they can't meet except by having their High Priests meet up, which is a whole other story.

Wrote this a bit earlier but forgot to press submit whoops.

[Rrmcklin]

This sounds about right, though we don't know enough about the Elven gods to know about how their gods came in. For all we know the Elven gods WERE unique beings that spontaneously arose out of nothing (Banjo/Giggles are, assuming they are their own Gods), and that the Dark One is something remarkably rare

We do know in fact, that isn't the case. They were like the Dark One, former elves so revered they rose to godhood, except the other gods actually accepted them warmly and easily.

[Squire Doodad]

I wonder, is there anyone who could fill the place of orange quiddity?

A general Mesoamerican (Quetzalcoatl, Chaahk), general Native American (Coyote, Raven), African (don't know much about them myself), maaaybe Japanese (Amaterasu, Susano'o) but those (along with some others like Celtic) are arguably too close geographically to the current ones (Southern and Northern respectively) for plot purposes, though you can easily argue that that's a stupid argument. Things like the Roman are just out right away. There's also a viable argument for the Creed of Stone and their ilk, but I'm not sure what their pantheon would look like.

And, of course, the MIGHTY BANJO!


We do know in fact, that isn't the case. They were like the Dark One, former elves so revered they rose to godhood, except the other gods actually accepted them warmly and easily.

I mean that at least some of them are spontaneous.
Where do we know that from, anyways? I don't really recall when exactly that was brought up...

[Rrmcklin]

A general Mesoamerican (Quetzalcoatl, Chaahk), general Native American (Coyote, Raven), African (don't know much about them myself), maaaybe Japanese (Amaterasu, Susano'o) but those (along with some others like Celtic) are arguably too close geographically to the current ones (Southern and Northern respectively) for plot purposes, though you can easily argue that that's a stupid argument. Things like the Roman are just out right away.

And, of course, the MIGHTY BANJO!



I mean that at least some of them are spontaneous.
Where do we know that from, anyways? I don't really recall when exactly that was brought up...

Start of Darkness. Actually, I'm a bit confused by what you mean by "spontaneous" here? Could you clarify?

[Anymage]

Dvalin, when he dies, will go where dwarves go when they die. I don’t see any reason to assume that the afterlife is cruelly snatched away from Dvalin just because he happened to be really, really good at being the dwarven king.

Dvalin the dwarf found his soul suffused with belief energy, and ascended to godhood. How much of that came from fervently believing living dwarves and how much was given as a boost from like-minded gods isn't really relevant, and the end goal is that he became Dvalin the demigod.

Dvalin the demigod could in theory live forever, barring accident, violence, or starvation. What happens if one of those things happens to him isn't spelled out in the comic (except if the snarl gets its claws on him), but it's unlikely to be pleasant.


But to eat food you need to, well, eat it. So how does that even work? Do gods just gobble them up now and then when the other souls aren't looking? Is each soul an infinite battery that keeps feeding a god for eternity? Then shouldn't the number of souls be going up in which case either they should be able to sustain a lot more gods or the gods should become stronger after each destruction after making sure there's no rivals? Or do souls have expiration dates and eventually stop pumping energy?

It's a little fuzzy because I don't think Rich cares about metaphysics except insofar as it drives the story. But most of the god-food that souls provide comes either as they live their life or at the immediate end of it. While I'm sure that a god could straight up eat a soul for power, that would likely be wasting most of their potential and only done in extreme circumstances. (Mostly to explain why evil gods keep souls around to torture them instead of devouring them immediately.) Once a soul is dead, it's a little fuzzy how much they'll eventually power their god vs. how much they'll enrich the plane, but that's a slow process regardless.


And more important, how do the gods even populate a new world?

If the gods can just create new souls out of nowhere, why do they need souls for sustenance?

Not all souls are equal. You can see this by how much levels matter.

Again, this isn't spelled out. But it's safe to assume that gods can make souls, but the process takes enough out of the god to make creating and then eating a soul a wash if not a net loss. Since living is how souls grow and gain levels, it's probably safe to assume that the first living souls in a world are created as loss leaders. They grow to provide more power back when they die, and might even be able to birth new souls without divine intervention.

Regardless, so long as gods get more mileage from stronger souls and souls get stronger through gaining XP while alive, the gods have a vested interest in mortals.

[Squire Doodad]

Start of Darkness. Actually, I'm a bit confused by what you mean by "spontaneous" here? Could you clarify?

Ah okay, that explains why I don't remember it.

Basically, and I may be wrong here, the Gods tend to come into existence as a result of reverence and belief and all that good stuff. For mortals, this is them ascending. In this case, a god spontaneously comes into existence because a group of people were worshiping and in sufficient numbers believing in a being or thing that did not properly exist. Then, the god they worship suddenly exists because there is too much worship on this one thing for it to not exist.

In case I'm being confusing: Let's say we have a God called Genericdeity, and a God called Eric.
Eric was a mortal, maybe the great King of the Westlands. When he died, everyone honored him so much that he ascended into a god. Similar to the Dark One.
Genericdeity is the almighty bringer of life in a civilization's culture. Genericdeity is not a mortal, and more to the point Genericdeity did not exist prior to the religion's creation; he was just a story that was made up with little to not origin outside of the first person to tell the story's mind. Then more stories happened, and eventually people started praying and worshiping Genericdeity for good crops and safe lives. 30 years later, there's a huge civilization the size of Canada, it has a population in the millions and they are all really religious and regularly pray to Genericdeity every day. They have a High Priest, a full clergy, Low-Epic Clerics, a shadow Templar Order and everything. Now, this civilization has an immense amount of praise aimed at this one being, twice as much as is needed to Ascend a mortal. From what I understand, this should be like the Outer Planes; they are ideas that became places, and so this is an idea that became a being. Thus, all of the knowledge, ideals and worship Genericdeity has gotten make him exist out of the thoughts.



Oh, and Egyptian too for the Orange Quiddity

[Anymage]

In case I'm being confusing: Let's say we have a God called Genericdeity, and a God called Eric.
Eric was a mortal, maybe the great King of the Westlands. When he died, everyone honored him so much that he ascended into a god. Similar to the Dark One.
Genericdeity is the almighty bringer of life in a civilization's culture. Genericdeity is not a mortal, and more to the point Genericdeity did not exist prior to the religion's creation; he was just a story that was made up with little to not origin outside of the first person to tell the story's mind. Then more stories happened, and eventually people started praying and worshiping Genericdeity for good crops and safe lives. 30 years later, there's a huge civilization the size of Canada, it has a population in the millions and they are all really religious and regularly pray to Genericdeity every day. They have a High Priest, a full clergy, Low-Epic Clerics, a shadow Templar Order and everything. Now, this civilization has an immense amount of praise aimed at this one being, twice as much as is needed to Ascend a mortal. From what I understand, this should be like the Outer Planes; they are ideas that became places, and so this is an idea that became a being. Thus, all of the knowledge, ideals and worship Genericdeity has gotten make him exist out of the thoughts.

You're forgetting some key points of the stickverse. Namely that there are pre-existing gods, that they presumably have some reason why they can't just create some other world somewhere else (otherwise they'd start fresh somewhere far from where the snarl could reach), and likewise they don't have the reserves to just sit out a world's worth of time and still expect to make it through to the next cycle unscathed.

So yes. If all the gods agreed to leave a sizable population of worshipers untouched, the belief would probably coalesce around something else. And have a good chance of creating a new quiddity too. (Or possibly recreate an old one, on the off chance that some new population manages to re-invent the greek pantheon.)

The problem is that I don't see many gods being willing to leave belief just lying on the table like that. Goblins as just XP sources for "real" followers is a very unlikely occurrence, and now that gods know that goblin belief has value not a situation likely to repeat itself. So you're unlikely to have gods agree not to meddle, and nobody would trust anybody else to stick to that agreement if it did happen. That being the case, gods would try to influence the mortals into giving up yummy belief and worship. And when that happens, you're staggeringly unlikely to find enough people to put together a critical mass of belief energy in a new god.

[Squire Doodad]

You're forgetting some key points of the stickverse. Namely that there are pre-existing gods, that they presumably have some reason why they can't just create some other world somewhere else (otherwise they'd start fresh somewhere far from where the snarl could reach), and likewise they don't have the reserves to just sit out a world's worth of time and still expect to make it through to the next cycle unscathed.

So yes. If all the gods agreed to leave a sizable population of worshipers untouched, the belief would probably coalesce around something else. And have a good chance of creating a new quiddity too. (Or possibly recreate an old one, on the off chance that some new population manages to re-invent the greek pantheon.)

The problem is that I don't see many gods being willing to leave belief just lying on the table like that. Goblins as just XP sources for "real" followers is a very unlikely occurrence, and now that gods know that goblin belief has value not a situation likely to repeat itself. So you're unlikely to have gods agree not to meddle, and nobody would trust anybody else to stick to that agreement if it did happen. That being the case, gods would try to influence the mortals into giving up yummy belief and worship. And when that happens, you're staggeringly unlikely to find enough people to put together a critical mass of belief energy in a new god.

You misunderstand my point. My example was in a Stickverse ruleset, but not inside Stickverse. It's the idea that something like that could happen. For an example that could happen in this world, it would be probably the result of the assimilation of one religion into the "main" one (so its probably what would happen if Banjo went into the Pantheon and Elan was a stickler about not being Banjo).

[Anymage]

You misunderstand my point. My example was in a Stickverse ruleset, but not inside Stickverse. It's the idea that something like that could happen. For an example that could happen in this world, it would be probably the result of the assimilation of one religion into the "main" one (so its probably what would happen if Banjo went into the Pantheon and Elan was a stickler about not being Banjo).

We're given very little information about divine mechanics in the comic. But from Thor's line "psychically charged theosophic particles escaping the event horizon of my divine singularity", I think you just need enough belief focused in a single place. The seed of a mortal soul certainly helps a lot, but isn't required. (And slight perturbations in the initial spread of belief-particles in the beginning of the universe could cause certain critical clumps to just be there, allowing us to describe where gods come from without having to delve too deep into the answer.) So yes, genericdeity could happen if nobody meddled.

And genericdeity would probably have a different color if nobody meddled, too. It's just that the odds of nobody meddling are negligible.

[Squire Doodad]

We're given very little information about divine mechanics in the comic. But from Thor's line "psychically charged theosophic particles escaping the event horizon of my divine singularity", I think you just need enough belief focused in a single place. The seed of a mortal soul certainly helps a lot, but isn't required. (And slight perturbations in the initial spread of belief-particles in the beginning of the universe could cause certain critical clumps to just be there, allowing us to describe where gods come from without having to delve too deep into the answer.) So yes, genericdeity could happen if nobody meddled.

And genericdeity would probably have a different color if nobody meddled, too. It's just that the odds of nobody meddling are negligible.

Okay, so we're pretty much in agreement then. Apologies for the brief confusion.

The Religious Group of Genericdeity probably would be a religion that is relatively certain that theirs is the right one, but doesn't know which one they are supposed to be, so any time they meet up its a short intro+announcements, 5-10 minutes of prayer/worship to whoever they go with and then a 2 hour long debate about philosophy and theology.

[Wizard_Lizard]

what if Hel doesn't make it to the next world?
Because she doesn't have enough souls.

[woweedd]

what if Hel doesn't make it to the next world?
Because she doesn't have enough souls.
She has souls to burn. In fact, she probably has more souls then most. The problem is her lack of Worship. She's suffering the godly version of a nutritional deficiency. She might develop God Diabetes, but it won't kill her.

[Fyraltari]

what if Hel doesn't make it to the next world?
Because she doesn't have enough souls.

Odin is still suffering from the effects of the last world belief, so it sounds like major gods receive enough god food from one world to last them through the transition and then some. The risk is for ascended gods who only gathered food from part of the world and started with nothing.

[snowblizz]

I imagine that Purple Quiddity (or rather, any new kind) is essentially being devoid of any other religious teachings. Perhaps it goes further to even rejecting the other pantheons because of justified hatred, which would be kind of sad but also interesting since it means the Gods specifically cannot cause a new Quiddity to appear.

That's basically my headcanon. What is purple quiddity? It's the outright rejection of the red and blue pantheons. When did the gods of the West do to goblinoids? No idea. Wait, you mean the northern gods aren't anti-goblinoids? Yeah what I'm saying. Based on absolutely nothing except that it amuses me that purple comes from red+blue.

[Squire Doodad]

That's basically my headcanon. What is purple quiddity? It's the outright rejection of the red and blue pantheons. When did the gods of the West do to goblinoids? No idea. Wait, you mean the northern gods aren't anti-goblinoids? Yeah what I'm saying. Based on absolutely nothing except that it amuses me that purple comes from red+blue.

Hmm, I'd actually look at it elementally.
North is Yellow -> Air
South is Blue -> Water
West is Red -> Fire
East is Green -> Earth

Typically, the addition to the four primary elements is Void, Dark or Light. Of the three, Dark and Void both fit better for the Dark One, and Purple is an appropriate color. Hence, the Purple Quiddity symbolically represents the Void, and as such more literally represents the rejection of the other pantheons.

[D.One]

what if Hel doesn't make it to the next world?
Because she doesn't have enough souls.

Her problem seems to be not lack of souls, but lack of fresh worship (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1144.html) due to having no clerics. She has, however, the followers of an entire pantheon believing in her, unlike TDO.

[Rrmcklin]

Her problem seems to be not lack of souls, but lack of fresh worship (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1144.html) due to having no clerics. She has, however, the followers of an entire pantheon believing in her, unlike TDO.

I mean, there are a lot of goblinoids out there.

I've just been assuming Hel (and all of the primordial gods, really) just have a lot "saved up" if you will. They don't use everything from one world, and start the next one basically starved, things carry over. And Hel has been doing this for millions (billions?) of worlds at this point that her messed up situation this one time around won't be enough to end her.

The Dark One, however, has only this world's goblinoids, and hasn't had enough time to store up enough.

[Anymage]

The dedications/souls from just one race in one world would give Hel a massive boost in the next world. That heavily implies that they get a fair amount in the world to come, and can't just afford to sit out a world while surviving on stored reserves.

And of the four forms of divine food, Hel is pretty set on three. When you're the boogeyman of a pantheon lots of people believe in you. She gets a decent number of souls and devotions as part of the Bet. The thing she's missing is active worship. And while it could be debated whether she gets literally no worship or just practically no worship, in practice it's an imbalanced diet that screws her up either way.

Edit to add: TDO, meanwhile, has only had around a mortal lifetime in which to build up energy reserves, and from what we've seen is worshiped by a significant fraction of goblins but not a majority. (See how many goblinoid tribes we see who don't care much either way about religion.) Gods absolutely do need reserves for the downtime between worlds, and there's no reason to believe that TDO has anything significant saved up.

[Rrmcklin]

The dedications/souls from just one race in one world would give Hel a massive boost in the next world. That heavily implies that they get a fair amount in the world to come, and can't just afford to sit out a world while surviving on stored reserves.

And of the four forms of divine food, Hel is pretty set on three. When you're the boogeyman of a pantheon lots of people believe in you. She gets a decent number of souls and devotions as part of the Bet. The thing she's missing is active worship. And while it could be debated whether she gets literally no worship or just practically no worship, in practice it's an imbalanced diet that screws her up either way.

I don't know if this is directed at me, but I'm not saying they can afford to sit out a world, just that their continued existence isn't totally dependent on the out going world, during the wait for the next one.

At least not for those who have been here since the beginning. I assume that's Hel's situation (even discounting her assumed payoff of all dwarf souls) while it very much isn't the Dark One's.

[RatElemental]

Hmm, I'd actually look at it elementally.
North is Yellow -> Air
South is Blue -> Water
West is Red -> Fire
East is Green -> Earth

Typically, the addition to the four primary elements is Void, Dark or Light. Of the three, Dark and Void both fit better for the Dark One, and Purple is an appropriate color. Hence, the Purple Quiddity symbolically represents the Void, and as such more literally represents the rejection of the other pantheons.

I really don't know why we should draw a parallel between the gods and the elements. The elemental planes are all inner planes, while the gods reside in the outer planes, and beyond that there are gods who govern specific elements in their part of the world too.

[Jasdoif]

I like to think of mortals ascending to deific-ness as a sort of symbiosis: whatever quiddity-bearing particulate spreads through the raw spirit-stuff of a soul, consuming a lot of energy, until it reaches critical "mass" and the hybrid becomes a new deity, retaining the character of the soul but with some differences owing to its new nature. Basically the soul is bound to the divine form and abilities, the same way it was bound to a glorified sausage in mortal life (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0493.html).

Sponsorship (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1142.html), then, would be one of the existing gods providing a starter culture and some energy, which results in the new deity having the same quiddity. The Dark One got really lucky and caught a wild particle, with a heretofore unobserved quiddity, from...wherever the heck the four pantheons first got theirs, however many worlds/eras ago that was. In Start of Darkness, Redcloak talks about the Dark One's massive army going on a rampage in his name after his murder, and we know dedication is a big burst (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1144.html); presumably enough goblins died dedicated to the Dark One for his serendipitous particle to get energy to complete the transformation of his soul, before too much of it decayed into a plane.


Or maybe not. Who knows? And that, as they say, is that.

[martianmister]

I really don't know why we should draw a parallel between the gods and the elements. The elemental planes are all inner planes, while the gods reside in the outer planes, and beyond that there are gods who govern specific elements in their part of the world too.

Four Elements usually means more than the literal elements; like humors, planets, metals, cards and such, they mean more.

[HorizonWalker]

Four Elements usually means more than the literal elements; like humors, planets, metals, cards and such, they mean more.

Sure, but the fact still remains that the Four Elements are still already represented in this cosmology, and so if the pantheons had any intentional elemental symbolism, we probably would've seen it already.

Besides, there's still something to the notion that the Inner Planes and Outer Planes are separate, symbolically. It's a metaphorical division between ideal and material, between heaven and earth. (Sure, the Inner Planes aren't the "earth" of this milieu, they're a bit further along the material axis to the point of hostility to life, but you get my point, right?)

[martianmister]

If we go by humours:

Northern Pantheon: Air/Sanguine
Southern Pantheon: Water/Phlegmatic
Western Pantheon: Fire/Choleric
The Dark One: Earth/Melancholic
Eastern Pantheon: Also Earth/Melancholic?

[Wizard_Lizard]

what if purple was the dark ones favourite colour?

[martianmister]

double post

[martianmister]

what if purple was the dark ones favourite colour?

What if it was his least favourite colour? What a terrible thought.

[Fyraltari]

what if purple was the dark ones favourite colour?

It's his skin colour.

[factotum]

It's his skin colour.

Yeah, I always thought that. OK, one can ask why TDO was born with that skin colour in the first place, being (as far as we've seen) unique in that respect, but if he'd been a regular orange-skinned hobgoblin he'd still have got a unique quiddity, since none of the other four pantheons have orange.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

one can ask why TDO was born with that skin colour in the first place

Son of a goblin and hobgoblin, maybe? Green and orange skin genes resulting in purple?

Grey Wolf

[hroþila]

Extreme body modification.

Or random mutation. One of the two.

[Jasdoif]

Extreme body modification.

Or random mutation. One of the two.Why not both, as in "extremely random body mutation"?

[Draconi Redfir]

my guess is just random mutation. though THEN AGAIN, Thor did say they haven't done natural selection yet, so i'm not sure random mutations really happen.

as much as i lothe to say it, someone might have been behind TDO.

[Jasdoif]

my guess is just random mutation. though THEN AGAIN, Thor did say they haven't done natural selection yet, so i'm not sure random mutations really happen.The connection between random mutation (of this magnitude) and natural selection is frail at best, so I don't think this is cause to worry.

[Anymage]

Natural selection isn't required for mutations. It just takes a lot of time, something that none of the worlds so far have really had. (And technically, we've seen natural selection happen even within recorded history, when the creatures have short generations and high selective pressure.)

Meanwhile, if TDO was the result of someone meddling, it would be impressive if some god finagled things just right without leaving their fingerprints all over the issue (which would have a high risk of leaving a lot of relevant quiddity around and risk the new godling ascending with an existing pantheon's energy), or else just seeing all those potential worshipers on the table and deciding to take them all for itself. I'm not saying that it's impossible that something had a hand in things, just that it's unlikely for any of the existing power players.

[hroþila]

The connection between random mutation (of this magnitude) and natural selection is frail at best, so I don't think this is cause to worry.
If the OOTS universe works alongside more Lamarckian lines (and given Elan and Nale vis-a-vis their parents, that seems entirely possible), what can we say about the connection between natural selection and extreme body modification?

[RatElemental]

If the OOTS universe works alongside more Lamarckian lines (and given Elan and Nale vis-a-vis their parents, that seems entirely possible), what can we say about the connection between natural selection and extreme body modification?

Can you explain how Elan and Nale have to do with Lamarckian evolution? I'm missing something here and this has piqued my interest.

[martianmister]

Yeah, I always thought that. OK, one can ask why TDO was born with that skin colour in the first place, being (as far as we've seen) unique in that respect, but if he'd been a regular orange-skinned hobgoblin he'd still have got a unique quiddity, since none of the other four pantheons have orange.
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?192524-The-Dark-One-s-true-intentions
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?203361-Dark-One-s-true-(SoD-spoilers)


Can you explain how Elan and Nale have to do with Lamarckian evolution? I'm missing something here and this has piqued my interest.
Elan and Nale inherited their parents' personalities.

[RatElemental]

Elan and Nale inherited their parents' personalities.

I think that's a case of upbringing. Personalities aren't genetic.

[Jasdoif]

If the OOTS universe works alongside more Lamarckian lines (and given Elan and Nale vis-a-vis their parents, that seems entirely possible), what can we say about the connection between natural selection and extreme body modification?Is it still "natural selection" if traits result from conscious choices on the part of the parents; or it is artificial selection at that point?

(This is probably more productive than trying to figure out how "If a celestial and a humanoid produce a child, that child is a humanoid with the half-celestial template; while a half-celestial humanoid's descendents are aasimar creatures" is supposed to work.)


Can you explain how Elan and Nale have to do with Lamarckian evolution? I'm missing something here and this has piqued my interest.Elan and Nale inherited nonphysical traits from both of their parents, (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0725.html) despite their family being split early enough for the two of them to not have memories of each other (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0724.html).

[martianmister]

I think that's a case of upbringing. Personalities aren't genetic.

Elan didn't know his father and Nale didn't know his mother, yet they inherited Tarquin's live of drama and their mother's complex planning skills.

[Dion]

Can you explain how Elan and Nale have to do with Lamarckian evolution? I'm missing something here and this has piqued my interest.

Lamarck was the first to imagine a difference in effects between cannabis indica and cannabis sativa.

Elan and Nale are clearly intended to represent sativa and Indica, respectively.

[Squire Doodad]

Yeah, I always thought that. OK, one can ask why TDO was born with that skin colour in the first place, being (as far as we've seen) unique in that respect, but if he'd been a regular orange-skinned hobgoblin he'd still have got a unique quiddity, since none of the other four pantheons have orange.

I mean, his specific color is what looks best with him, in this case his skin color.

If he was a blue Azurblin or something, his quiddity would still be unique due to the circumstances, not his own biology (though his biology partially led to the circumstances).

[Wizard_Lizard]

I never knew TDO was purple. Serves me right for reading the comic in black and white.

[KorvinStarmast]

I never knew TDO was purple. Serves me right for reading the comic in black and white. As Paul Simon once sang ....
Everything looks worse in black and white.

(The song was Kodachrom (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrRRhoS3KFk)e, circa 1973-1974)

this version has pictures (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4ltLp30KVs) ....

[Wizard_Lizard]

As Paul Simon once sang ....
Everything looks worse in black and white.

....

True that.

[KorvinStarmast]

True that. With the exception that, in the hands of a gifted photographer (like Ansel Adams) some black and white photos are awesome.

[Riftwolf]

With the exception that, in the hands of a gifted photographer (like Ansel Adams) some black and white photos are awesome.

Greyscale isn't the same as black and white.
(but I agree Ansel Adams was friggin awesome. Can we talk about awesome photographers? Yknow, as a break from Star Walignmiko?)

[snowblizz]

Greyscale isn't the same as black and white.
(but I agree Ansel Adams was friggin awesome. Can we talk about awesome photographers? Yknow, as a break from Star Walignmiko?)

Only in the context whether a great greyscale photographer could make Miko any thing but a black and white morality character and how that affects the extended Star Wars universe.

[Riftwolf]

Only in the context whether a great greyscale photographer could make Miko any thing but a black and white morality character and how that affects the extended Star Wars universe.

*gives it some thought*
Weegee Fellig could have, but only if the photo was of Jolee Bindo shaking hands with Greedo during a 'truth and reconciliation' summit over who shot first. Miko would have to accept the verdict and move onto the more important moral quandaries involving Balrog Wings. Otherwise, nope I got nothing.

[Wizard_Lizard]

*gives it some thought*
Weegee Fellig could have, but only if the photo was of Jolee Bindo shaking hands with Greedo during a 'truth and reconciliation' summit over who shot first. Miko would have to accept the verdict and move onto the more important moral quandaries involving Balrog Wings. Otherwise, nope I got nothing.

Me neither.

[martianmister]

Only in the context whether a great greyscale photographer could make Miko any thing but a black and white morality character and how that affects the extended Star Wars universe.

Well, Weegee Fellig could have, but only if the photo was of Jolee Bindo shaking hands with Greedo during a "truth and reconciliation" summit over who shot first. Miko would have to accept the verdict and move onto the more important moral quandaries involving Balrog Wings.

[Riftwolf]

Well, Weegee Fellig could have, but only if the photo was of Jolee Bindo shaking hands with Greedo during a "truth and reconciliation" summit over who shot first. Miko would have to accept the verdict and move onto the more important moral quandaries involving Balrog Wings.

*head explodes*

[CriticalFailure]

Interesting point about someone being behind The Dark One.

It seems decently likely that TDO was originally intended to be an antagonist to some other adventuring party, whether as sub boss or BBEG. Especially given the claim that TDO was different from other goblins because he had the elite array and class levels. Maybe somewhere along the line whatever universal force that controls narrative law/campaign plotting/etc in this universe (it's not clear whether it's the gods, some sort of "laws of narrative" embedded into the universe, or something else that drives this stuff) decided that a goblin warlord with the elite array and class levels would be a good boss associated with the generic goblin horde and made him purple for flavor. I guess the implications are slightly different depending on whether some deity thought "this would be a good challenge for adventurers" versus the narrative laws of the universe generating him.

I always sort of assumed that after TDO was given dominion over the goblinoids it opened things up for them to take class levels and have more variety in terms of stats and stuff.

[Squire Doodad]

Interesting point about someone being behind The Dark One.

It seems decently likely that TDO was originally intended to be an antagonist to some other adventuring party, whether as sub boss or BBEG. Especially given the claim that TDO was different from other goblins because he had the elite array and class levels. Maybe somewhere along the line whatever universal force that controls narrative law/campaign plotting/etc in this universe (it's not clear whether it's the gods, some sort of "laws of narrative" embedded into the universe, or something else that drives this stuff) decided that a goblin warlord with the elite array and class levels would be a good boss associated with the generic goblin horde and made him purple for flavor. I guess the implications are slightly different depending on whether some deity thought "this would be a good challenge for adventurers" versus the narrative laws of the universe generating him.

I always sort of assumed that after TDO was given dominion over the goblinoids it opened things up for them to take class levels and have more variety in terms of stats and stuff.

I think TDO was a boss of a minor dungeon, but then survived, wasn't killed, and went ahead and took actions to make change for all goblinoids. He's a hero so powerful that he went ahead, broke free of the narrative, and made it his own.

[CriticalFailure]

I think TDO was a boss of a minor dungeon, but then survived, wasn't killed, and went ahead and took actions to make change for all goblinoids. He's a hero so powerful that he went ahead, broke free of the narrative, and made it his own.


I like this theory a lot and while the details could vary in terms of the original intents for TDO and when he went "off script" I think it fits really well.

I've been wondering if Elan's speech about heroes being able to defy stories will eventually play into parleying with Redcloak and discussing what he and The Dark One are actually trying to do. I've been thinking, Redcloak seems to act as a foil to all of the members of the Order besides Belkar in some specific way. With Elan, in 931 he roughly says "only a special hero can defy stories themselves," and Redcloak + The Dark One are not only defying the gods who created this world but some very basic tropes and narrative laws that they baked into the current world. Changing the station and role of goblinoids is basically the most ambitious, most fundamental, largest scale attempt to defy stories we have seen by far. The overlap with Durkon is probably the most obvious: both are religious and clerics; both are very lawful, worry about doing the wrong thing/not following the rules properly, and have a very strong sense of duty that they have made themselves miserable trying to fulfill (in fact I think you could call both of them Lawful Miserable). With V, I think it's fair to say that they have both done terrible things that they deeply regret. While Redcloak is currently trying to rationalize and tell himself "it will all be worth it, you'll see" I think the story will eventually force him to confront the shame and regret he's using it to suppress at some point. When it comes to Roy, both he and Redcloak have struggled with living up to their responsibilities for others and dealing with how their failures have hurt people. Additionally, for both this is exacerbated by being given a lot of responsibility at too young of an age without sufficient support (Roy being given the responsibility to watch his brother when he was, what 10 or something while his father abdicated responsibility and Redcloak simultaneously losing any adults in his life who could help guide him and being made the High Priest of his religion/personally responsible for his god's evil scheme to change the fate of his entire race while still a teenager ). With Haley, both of them suffered negative experiences at a young age including seeing their mothers violently killed and both responded by developing defensively negative view - Haley developed an inability to trust anyone and Redcloak developed distrust and bigotry toward humans.

Obviously as a foil Redcloak represents negative responses to these things compared to the positivity of the Order members. While Elan realizes he can defy stories to stop people from getting hurt, Redcloak is risking the souls of the entire world and even the gods by doing so. While Durkon sacrifices personally and doesn't expect others to do the same, Redcloak harms others and sacrifices his his followers as well as his own well-being for his God's will. While V faced what she did and began to change the aspects of herself that motivated her evil behavior, Redcloak doubled down on rationalizing his actions and continued to do more evil things. While Roy faced his failures while in positions of leadership/responsibility and learned to be better, Redcloak has denied responsibility at most opportunities so that he doesn't have to accept how his failures have hurt people, once again becoming a worse leader and a worse person in order to do so. While Haley has challenged the trust issues she developed as a child and learned to open up to those she cares about and rely on her team members, Redcloak has held onto his bigotry towards humans, further perpetuated a cycle of pointless violence and animosity, and put himself in an environment in which "team" members are constantly manipulating each other while pursuing hidden agendas.

The fact that communicating with Redcloak/TDO is a crucial plot point now makes me wonder if all these overlaps between Redcloak and the PCs will end up being brought up more explicitly/be plot points.

[KorvinStarmast]

I think TDO was a boss of a minor dungeon, but then survived, wasn't killed, and went ahead and took actions to make change for all goblinoids. He's a hero so powerful that he went ahead, broke free of the narrative, and made it his own. I really like this take on TDO. *tips cap* I also think that his favorite drink should be Grape Nehi. :smallcool:

[Draconi Redfir]

... if you think about it... that's exactly what happened to Xykon...

boss of a minor dungeon

survived

is now taking over the narrative

... uh oh..

[Wizard_Lizard]

... if you think about it... that's exactly what happened to Xykon...

boss of a minor dungeon

survived

is now taking over the narrative

... uh oh..

Oh no.......

[KorvinStarmast]

OH, no, the ecru quiddity is about to ascend! *flees for the hills*

[Wizard_Lizard]

OH, no, the ecru quiddity is about to ascend! *flees for the hills*
Don't worry, we have the vomit green quiddity on our side!

[Xyril]

I think that's a case of upbringing. Personalities aren't genetic.

I think he might have been referring to the fact that each inherited a trait from the non-custodial parent as well (Elan got his dad's penchant for narrative, while Nale inherited his mother's obsession with overly-complicated plans.)

Of course, we can't know whether this implies anything about Lamarckian evolution unless we confirm that those traits didn't exist in previous generations. It's quite possible that Elan is only the most recent sequel in a franchise stretching back to the creation of this world.

[Schroeswald]

I think he might have been referring to the fact that each inherited a trait from the non-custodial parent as well (Elan got his dad's penchant for narrative, while Nale inherited his mother's obsession with overly-complicated plans.)

Of course, we can't know whether this implies anything about Lamarckian evolution unless we confirm that those traits didn't exist in previous generations. It's quite possible that Elan is only the most recent sequel in a franchise stretching back to the creation of this world.
Or Beyond,
:elan: DUN Dun dun

[Squire Doodad]

Or Beyond,
:elan: DUN Dun dun

They've had a version of him every single iteration of the universe, passing down his Elanian traits for generations.
Most of the gods are kind of tired of him, but Njord likes his archetype too much to do without him.

[Schroeswald]

They've had a version of him every single iteration of the universe, passing down his Elanian traits for generations.
Most of the gods are kind of tired of him, but Njord likes his archetype too much to do without him.

No, not, Njord, Banjo! He is what keeps the Elanian line alive, and makes sure every one of them escapes the world.

[CriticalFailure]

Xykon has always been the big bad of this narrative though - when this narrative became more complicated it was largely built around him and Redcloak. I don't think he ever qualified for minor boss.

[Wizard_Lizard]

No, not, Njord, Banjo! He is what keeps the Elanian line alive, and makes sure every one of them escapes the world.

Now all i can think of is Banjo, and his collection of Elans from all over the multiverse...

[deuterio12]

Xykon has always been the big bad of this narrative though - when this narrative became more complicated it was largely built around him and Redcloak. I don't think he ever qualified for minor boss.

Redcloak was the first big bad in the story, but he's really fallen to the side by the sorting alghorytm of evil.

This is, when was the last time we even saw Xykon or he was even mentioned? Redcloak's the main non-god target now, worthy of Thor's attention. Plus plenty of gods willing to just blow up this world anyway even if Xykon was stopped for good. Xykon's only relevance right now is being the skeleton that always hangs near Redcloak.

Xykon may yet play a role, but at this point the worst he could do at this point is probably just blow up the last gate out of pure spite once he finds out Redcloak's been manipulating him all this time. But most of the gods would just be "meh, just another world lost, we can make another, the cycle continues".

[Schroeswald]

Redcloak was the first big bad in the story, but he's really fallen to the side by the sorting alghorytm of evil.

This is, when was the last time we even saw Xykon or he was even mentioned? Redcloak's the main non-god target now, worthy of Thor's attention. Plus plenty of gods willing to just blow up this world anyway even if Xykon was stopped for good. Xykon's only relevance right now is being the skeleton that always hangs near Redcloak.

Xykon may yet play a role, but at this point the worst he could do at this point is probably just blow up the last gate out of pure spite once he finds out Redcloak's been manipulating him all this time. But most of the gods would just be "meh, just another world lost, we can make another, the cycle continues".

Xykon is the main antagonist because he wants to take over the world, yes it’s been three years since he was last mentioned or appeared, but Redcloak hasn’t been mentioned by name since then either. To save the world Redcloak needs to be convinced to be somewhat redeemed, so Xykon will be the final person to be fought by the OOTS.

[factotum]

I agree with Schroeswald. Redcloak is *deep* into the sunk cost fallacy by now, he's not going to help the "good guys" so long as there's a chance of carrying out the Plan--and Xykon is key to that. If Xykon and his phylactery are both destroyed, then Redcloak might be persuaded to listen to reason, not before.

[deuterio12]

I agree with Schroeswald. Redcloak is *deep* into the sunk cost fallacy by now, he's not going to help the "good guys" so long as there's a chance of carrying out the Plan--and Xykon is key to that. If Xykon and his phylactery are both destroyed, then Redcloak might be persuaded to listen to reason, not before.

Yes, Xykon, needs to be removed.

No, Xykon isn't a key part of Redcloak's plan. The lich's a pretty powerful asset, but Redcloak has grown quite powerful himself. Remember how easily he crushed the Azure resistance? The glorious goblin pope could probably solo the OOTS.

If anything, Redcloak himself is preparing to backstab Xykon by having switched his phylactery.

The OotS may perfectly end up not having their final battle against Xykon at all, just Redcloak going "you've out(un)lived your usefulness".

Or maybe Roy and Xykon end up having a final private duel. The lich's is Greenhilt's nemesis, and every time they meet it ends up getting personal.

[Schroeswald]

Yes, Xykon, needs to be removed.

No, Xykon isn't a key part of Redcloak's plan. The lich's a pretty powerful asset, but Redcloak has grown quite powerful himself. Remember how easily he crushed the Azure resistance? The glorious goblin pope could probably solo the OOTS.

If anything, Redcloak himself is preparing to backstab Xykon by having switched his phylactery.

The OotS may perfectly end up not having their final battle against Xykon at all, just Redcloak going "you've out(un)lived your usefulness".
Xykon is very clearly a key part of his plan, sunk cost fallacy and all that, he’s also the only high level person he’s been able to trick into being willing to cast the spell, for better or worse Redcloak is stuck on this ship until it sinks all the way down.

[deuterio12]

Xykon is very clearly a key part of his plan, sunk cost fallacy and all that, he’s also the only high level person he’s been able to trick into being willing to cast the spell, for better or worse Redcloak is stuck on this ship until it sinks all the way down.

Then why did Redcloak went through all the trouble of switching Xykon's phylactery? It was an extremely risky move and makes zero sense if Redcloak's ready to sink with the lich. The goblin pope is finally ready to cut his losses.

Plus Redcloak has plan B of "let this world be destroyed and hope the next one is better", for which Xykon isn't necessary either.

[Schroeswald]

Then why did Redcloak went through all the trouble of switching Xykon's phylactery? It was an extremely risky move and makes zero sense if Redcloak's ready to sink with the lich. The goblin pope is finally ready to cut his losses.

Plus Redcloak has plan B of "let this world be destroyed and hope the next one is better", for which Xykon isn't necessary either.

In case Xykon figures it out he’s ready to use the phylactery to keep him in check

[deuterio12]

In case Xykon figures it out he’s ready to use the phylactery to keep him in check

Redcloak already tried that specific move in the prequel book and it failed. So the goblin pope's planning something new to do with that phylactery, and it's not gonna be nice for the lich.

[Fyraltari]

At the very least stealing the phylactery considerably diminishes Xykon’s chances of surviving Redcloak.

In any case Redcloak needs to believe he controls the Lich so plotting behind his back, even if it is ineffectual would help him preserve whatever sanity he has left.

[deuterio12]

At the very least stealing the phylactery considerably diminishes Xykon’s chances of surviving Redcloak.

In any case Redcloak needs to believe he controls the Lich so plotting behind his back, even if it is ineffectual would help him preserve whatever sanity he has left.

No need to steal the phylactery then, Redcloak's been plotting behind Xykon's back since day 1. The lich still has no idea that controling the snarl is impossible and the plan is just to sick the eldritch abomination upon the gods.

Remember when Redcloak made that goth necromancer get eaten by her own ghouls when she thought she had the upper hand over him? It was glorious, and I predict Redcloak will pull something even greater with Xykon before the comic is over.

[factotum]

Then why did Redcloak went through all the trouble of switching Xykon's phylactery? It was an extremely risky move and makes zero sense if Redcloak's ready to sink with the lich. The goblin pope is finally ready to cut his losses.

Without a high level arcane caster, the Plan goes nowhere. Redcloak has been chasing this thing for thirty years or more, you're thinking he's going to off Xykon now when he has no alternative in place? The guy is many things, but stupid isn't one of them. As for why he switched Xykon's phylactery, his speech to Tsukiko shortly before doing that explains that perfectly--he sees Xykon as a tool that he controls, and hiding his real phylactery is part of that.

[hroþila]

In my opinion, the ol' phylactery switcheroo wasn't about Redcloak planning to off Xykon, it was about appeasing his own conscience. Now, whenever the question of what he's been doing to contain Xykon's threat to goblinoids everywhere pops up, Redcloak can fool himself by saying "I stole his phylactery so that I can destroy him for good at the right time", even though he's absolutely not working towards that goal and never has. Quite the contrary, actually.

The most charitable reading IMO would be that Redcloak did it because he knows himself and knows he can't trust himself to do the right thing and destroy Xykon when the opportunity arises, so he gave himself a push (if Xykon's body is destroyed, the rabbit is out of the hat and Redcloak has to destroy the phylactery no matter how much he dislikes the idea).

Most likely, though, it was just to give himself a fake sense of control, even if it's a kind of control he can't exercise at all.

[Fyraltari]

No need to steal the phylactery then, Redcloak's been plotting behind Xykon's back since day 1. The lich still has no idea that controling the snarl is impossible and the plan is just to sick the eldritch abomination upon the gods.

Remember when Redcloak made that goth necromancer get eaten by her own ghouls when she thought she had the upper hand over him? It was glorious, and I predict Redcloak will pull something even greater with Xykon before the comic is over.
Remember when Xykon had Redcloak murder and desecrate the corpse of his own beloved brother?

Redcloak needs to believe he is a chessmaster manipulating a powerful tool to how own ends and that he can control said tool else he would have to face the guilt of what he has done.
But the truth is that he has long lost control of the monster he unleashed on his own people and that it is only because said monster has nothing better to stave off his own boredom that he still vaguely going in the direction Red aimed for.

In my opinion, the ol' phylactery switcheroo wasn't about Redcloak planning to off Xykon, it was about appeasing his own conscience. Now, whenever the question of what he's been doing to contain Xykon's threat to goblinoids everywhere pops up, Redcloak can fool himself by saying "I stole his phylactery so that I can destroy him for good at the right time", even though he's absolutely not working towards that goal and never has. Quite the contrary, actually.

The most charitable reading IMO would be that Redcloak did it because he knows himself and knows he can't trust himself to do the right thing and destroy Xykon when the opportunity arises, so he gave himself a push (if Xykon's body is destroyed, the rabbit is out of the hat and Redcloak has to destroy the phylactery no matter how much he dislikes the idea).

Most likely, though, it was just to give himself a fake sense of control, even if it's a kind of control he can't exercise at all.

Exactly, thank you!

[Dion]

I couldn’t predict table, and I can’t predict the end of the story.

But I can imagine redcloak turning on Xykon and destroying the phylactery after Xykon has been destroyed by the OotS.

In fact, I can imagine Redcloak doing things far worse to Xykon than simply destroying his phylactery.

[LadyEowyn]

I figure he’s got the phylactery because he plans on destroying both it and Xykon immediately after the Plan is completed. Which he couldn’t do if the real phylactery was in Xykon’s astral fortress.

[CriticalFailure]

I mean, Xykon was the original big bad to the Order and defeating him has been their main goal for a long time (both in story and from a meta perspective). He seems to still fit in the big bad role in the story despite the fact that he is unwittingly pursuing Redcloak's goals and that Redcloak and his god are the main instigators of a lot of the plot. It can appear confusing because in a lot of stuff the plot is entirely driven by the big bad because they have the most power, whereas Redcloak does it by convincing the more powerful big bad to join his plan, attack Azure city, etc. Defeating Xykon has been the order's main goal for a long time (first to fulfill Roy's quest, then to keep him from the gates) for a long time, and Durkon's quest from Thor sets up Redcloak as someone who needs to be talked to and Xykon as the biggest obstacle preventing it from happening. If The Order had found out long ago that The Plan was really Redcloak's thing, he might've been a candidate for true big bad, but as it stands I think Xykon fulfills that role.

[hroþila]

I figure he’s got the phylactery because he plans on destroying both it and Xykon immediately after the Plan is completed. Which he couldn’t do if the real phylactery was in Xykon’s astral fortress.
That could be the case - I get the impression Redcloak doesn't care much about what happens to him personally once the Plan is completed, but he could be thinking that even if the Dark One wins in this world, Xykon would remain a threat if he's not destroyed. Redcloak might also want to make sure Xykon will be undone if the Plan fails. I guess there's any number of more or less vague motivations for Redcloak to do the switcheroo without having any concrete plans to turn on Xykon.

[deuterio12]

That could be the case - I get the impression Redcloak doesn't care much about what happens to him personally once the Plan is completed, but he could be thinking that even if the Dark One wins in this world, Xykon would remain a threat if he's not destroyed. Redcloak might also want to make sure Xykon will be undone if the Plan fails. I guess there's any number of more or less vague motivations for Redcloak to do the switcheroo without having any concrete plans to turn on Xykon.

I'm pretty sure that regardless of the exact time that Redcloak destroys Xykon, it will still count as turning on Xykon.

Unless you want to pull a Char and claim that Redcloak was never loyal to Xykon in the first place so he can never betray him.

Either way the risk is still pretty great. Whatever the goblin pope's planning to do with the real phylactery, it must end with Xykon destroyed for good.


Remember when Xykon had Redcloak murder and desecrate the corpse of his own beloved brother?

Redcloak needs to believe he is a chessmaster manipulating a powerful tool to how own ends and that he can control said tool else he would have to face the guilt of what he has done.


Redcloak isn't the pope of Mr. Rainbows the benevolent god.

Redcloak is the pope of the Dark One, a god of war and violence that ascended after running a bloody crusade accross the land.

People sometimes seem to forget that Redcloak is evil. What's a few/lots of sacrifices along the road? What's close family compared to your god's direct decree? The goblin pope's even stated to be ready to sacrifice all of goblinkind in his divine mission by just getting the world destroyed and hope the next one is better.

Contrast to Xykon who actually declared he enjoys this world and has no plans to destroy it.



But the truth is that he has long lost control of the monster he unleashed on his own people and that it is only because said monster has nothing better to stave off his own boredom that he still vaguely going in the direction Red aimed for.


That's still control. In particular considering that there's a plenty long line of corpses of people who tried to manipulate Xykon.

And funny thing is, Redcloak's the even bigger monster here, with a plan that risks ending with both the world and gods destroyed. That's overkill even by Xykon's standards.

So no, even if the OoTS has some big battle against the lich and wins, Redcloak won't go "oh I guess I surrender". Redcloak will go "you just destroyed my loose puppet, now you face me". The real challenge will be to bring down Redcloak whitout killing him.

[Schroeswald]

I'm pretty sure that regardless of the exact time that Redcloak destroys Xykon, it will still count as turning on Xykon.

Unless you want to pull a Char and claim that Redcloak was never loyal to Xykon in the first place so he can never betray him.

Either way the risk is still pretty great. Whatever the goblin pope's planning to do with the real phylactery, it must end with Xykon destroyed for good.

Yes, but he'll likely have been convinced by Durkon to be good by that point.


Redcloak isn't the pope of Mr. Rainbows the benevolent god.

Redcloak is the pope of the Dark One, a god of war and violence that ascended after running a bloody crusade accross the land.

People sometimes seem to forget that Redcloak is evil. What's a few/lots of sacrifices along the road? What's close family compared to your god's direct decree? The goblin pope's even stated to be ready to sacrifice all of goblinkind in his divine mission by just getting the world destroyed and hope the next one is better.

Contrast to Xykon who actually declared he enjoys this world and has no plans to destroy it.

Redcloak looks into the mirror, where he looks like his dead brother, and says that it will all be worth it (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0701.html), if that's not him saying he doesn't see it as nothing, short of him saying
:redcloak: I have very strong mixed feelings about killing my brother, Right-Eye
I don't know what is


That's still control. In particular considering that there's a plenty long line of corpses of people who tried to manipulate Xykon.

And funny thing is, Redcloak's the even bigger monster here, with a plan that risks ending with both the world and gods destroyed. That's overkill even by Xykon's standards.

So no, even if the OoTS has some big battle against the lich and wins, Redcloak won't go "oh I guess I surrender". Redcloak will go "you just destroyed my loose puppet, now you face me". The real challenge will be to bring down Redcloak whitout killing him.
Or, they bring Redcloak on their side (because that's the goal), and then kill Xykon, who can't be reasoned with, because he doesn't have clear and sympathetic motivations that can be looked at.

[LadyEowyn]

We’ve already got the author’s word that Xykon, not Redcloak (and not the Snarl) is the main villain of OOTS.

And we now have an established plot where Redcloak and/or his god are the best chance of saving the world in the short term, and the only chance of saving it in the long term.

And Redcloak is not a static character. He’s changed since SOD, and we have some strong indications that he’s changing in ways that could increase his willingness to listen to the Order. He no longer finds revenge on paladins satisfying. Ever since the phylactery switch he very clearly wants to be rid of Xykon ASAP and thus is deeply frustrated by how long ut takes to overcome the defenses of Kraagor’s Gate. This is compounded by the fact that he has no desire to kill the monsters of Kraagor’s Gate (given the origins of goblins, it makes perfect sense that random dungeon fights against monsters would be pretty much Redcloak’s least favourite form of combat).

He feels invested both in Gobbotopia and in broader geopolitical relations between goblinoids (discussing trade agreements with Oona). At the same time, he’s either lying or in denial about the degree to which this conflicts with the Plan (“Monster Hollow” will almost certainly not be okay if the Plan succeeds, or for that matter if it fails and the Gate is destroyed).

It’s getting clearer that he’s going to have to choose between the Plan and the welfare of goblinkind, and clearer that he’s goung to be very conflicted about that decision. Durkon’s information could, ultimately, tip the balance.

[CriticalFailure]

I think it's pretty clear that the comic is building to the Order triumphantly defeating Xykon. Redcloak defeating him would be anti-climatic, plus he far out-levels Redcloak so it would be extremely unlikely. It's also pretty clear that the tension and distrust on Team Evil have been mounting the entire story, so I don't think Redcloak will just defect - there will be some sort of reckoning where all the betrayal and distrust comes to a head.

To elaborate on what's been said, the challenge is for the Order to convince Redcloak to cooperate and negotiate without Redcloak killing them, Xykon killing them, them killing Redcloak, Xykon killing Redcloak, MiTD killing Redcloak, or Redcloak killing himself.

[deuterio12]

We’ve already got the author’s word that Xykon, not Redcloak (and not the Snarl) is the main villain of OOTS.


Well then Xykon better ascend into an uber god about to destroy all the planes, because right now he's small potatoes compared to Hel and whatnot being about to destroy the world.



And we now have an established plot where Redcloak and/or his god are the best chance of saving the world in the short term, and the only chance of saving it in the long term.

And Redcloak is not a static character. He’s changed since SOD, and we have some strong indications that he’s changing in ways that could increase his willingness to listen to the Order. He no longer finds revenge on paladins satisfying. Ever since the phylactery switch he very clearly wants to be rid of Xykon ASAP and thus is deeply frustrated by how long ut takes to overcome the defenses of Kraagor’s Gate. This is compounded by the fact that he has no desire to kill the monsters of Kraagor’s Gate (given the origins of goblins, it makes perfect sense that random dungeon fights against monsters would be pretty much Redcloak’s least favourite form of combat).

He feels invested both in Gobbotopia and in broader geopolitical relations between goblinoids (discussing trade agreements with Oona). At the same time, he’s either lying or in denial about the degree to which this conflicts with the Plan (“Monster Hollow” will almost certainly not be okay if the Plan succeeds, or for that matter if it fails and the Gate is destroyed).

It’s getting clearer that he’s going to have to choose between the Plan and the welfare of goblinkind, and clearer that he’s goung to be very conflicted about that decision.

Maybe just me, but Redcloak didn't seem conflicted at all when he disintegrated the greatest living goblinoid smith after he finished the phylactery replica instead of, you know, ressurecting him so he could keep supporting Gobbotopia.

Actually it's Xykon who needs to order the goblin pope to ressurect any brave goblin who died for the cause.

Basically Gobbotopia is a side project at best, handy to have a big army and the logistics to support them, but following the Dark One's plan is still Redcloak's #1 priority and he's still ready to sacrifice anything and anyone to make it happen.



I think it's pretty clear that the comic is building to the Order triumphantly defeating Xykon. Redcloak defeating him would be anti-climatic, plus he far out-levels Redcloak so it would be extremely unlikely. It's also pretty clear that the tension and distrust on Team Evil have been mounting the entire story, so I don't think Redcloak will just defect - there will be some sort of reckoning where all the betrayal and distrust comes to a head.

You mean like Elan's father ended up just falling out of the airship while screaming how anticlimatic that arc ending was?

Or how Roy defeated the epic lich with his bare hands in their first meeting?

The order already defeated Xykon. It's happened. It's old news.

But they let Redcloak, the true mastermind slip away.

Notice the key detail that the OotS have never faced Redcloak directly. We've seen that Roy can punch the lich into oblivion by himself as long as he has some solid ground to stand on. And we've seen Redcloak kick plenty of ass himself against others. But we've yet to see them directly engage against one another. So if the comic's building up to anything, it's for Redcloak vs OotS.

Actually it's pretty cunning from Redcloak to let Xykon take the spotlight all this long. All the heroes be gonna aiming for the lich, letting the goblin pope advance his agenda behind the scenes.



To elaborate on what's been said, the challenge is for the Order to convince Redcloak to cooperate and negotiate without Redcloak killing them, Xykon killing them, them killing Redcloak, Xykon killing Redcloak, MiTD killing Redcloak, or Redcloak killing himself.


Precisely, Redcloak is the real goal here, Xykon is just a recurring boss that got his time to shine but was shoved to the sidelines pretty hard while being left behind by powercreep. Xykon may show up for a final boss rush, but Redcloak remains the true target, and it'll take a lot more than destroying one of the goblin pople's undead puppets to make him fold.

[CriticalFailure]

Well then Xykon better ascend into an uber god about to destroy all the planes, because right now he's small potatoes compared to Hel and whatnot being about to destroy the world.


You mean like Elan's father ended up just falling out of the airship while screaming how anticlimatic that arc ending was?

Or how Roy defeated the epic lich with his bare hands in their first meeting?

The order already defeated Xykon. It's happened. It's old news.

But they let Redcloak, the true mastermind slip away.

Notice the key detail that the OotS have never faced Redcloak directly. We've seen that Roy can punch the lich into oblivion by himself as long as he has some solid ground to stand on. And we've seen Redcloak kick plenty of ass himself against others. But we've yet to see them directly engage against one another. So if the comic's building up to anything, it's for Redcloak vs OotS.

Actually it's pretty cunning from Redcloak to let Xykon take the spotlight all this long. All the heroes be gonna aiming for the lich, letting the goblin pope advance his agenda behind the scenes.

Precisely, Redcloak is the real goal here, Xykon is just a recurring boss that got his time to shine but was shoved to the sidelines pretty hard while being left behind by powercreep. Xykon may show up for a final boss rush, but Redcloak remains the true target, and it'll take a lot more than destroying one of the goblin pople's undead puppets to make him fold.


Pretty sure the Order aren't going to actually fight any gods, just the mortals/undead mucking around with their plans, which covers the vampires and Team Evil both.

Negotiating with Redcloak in order to fix the rifts is the end goal, and it will most likely only be possible by defeating Xykon. The Order destroying his body once was not successful in permanently destroying him, and for Roy at least the whole comic has built up to a final showdown. Defeating Xykon has also remained the Order's goal throughout the comic even though the motivation for doing so has changed (fulfill Roy's father's blood oath, show Roy's father fighters are cool, prevent Xykon from taking control of a gate and weakening reality, defending Azure city, and finally to stop Redcloak's plan from going through and instead convince him to cooperate). Xykon is the main obstacle/big bad that must be defeated to achieve the goal of getting Redcloak to cooperate, similar to any story in which the heroes must defeat the main obstacle/big bad in order to get some more tangible goal such as a macguffin. Redcloak is always portrayed as less powerful than Xykon - he is the mastermind but he almost certainly won't fulfill the role of final boss. Xykon will probably fill the role of final boss.

The arc with Elan's father falling out of an airship wasn't really anti climatic per se - the whole point was that they defeated him from a meta narrative stand point by not giving him the story he wanted. So it was satisfying and unique in how it fit into the story.

[Squire Doodad]

Actually it's Xykon who needs to order the goblin pope to ressurect any brave goblin who died for the cause.


Xykon doesn't care about any goblins. He would only need to have RC do Clericy stuff on dead goblins if Xykon is fresh out of spells and there's a random high-level uberwarrior goblin he wants to have made into an undead.

Xykon sees RC as means to an end. Just like RC sees Xykon.

[CriticalFailure]

Also I think that Xykon controls the finances and Redcloak can only resurrect goblins if Xykon is willing to pay for it.

[Squire Doodad]

Also I think that Xykon controls the finances and Redcloak can only resurrect goblins if Xykon is willing to pay for it.

Eh, RC definitely has his own private stash of everything relevant.
I suspect that if Xykon were to suddenly be vaporized the second they hit the gate, RC could set up the entire gate ritual on his own, assuming he had a spare sufficiently-leveled Arcane caster.

[CriticalFailure]

Eh, RC definitely has his own private stash of everything relevant.
I suspect that if Xykon were to suddenly be vaporized the second they hit the gate, RC could set up the entire gate ritual on his own, assuming he had a spare sufficiently-leveled Arcane caster.


If I had to guess I would guess that Xykon probably at least tries to be seen to be in complete control of the finances to send the message that he's in control and to reassure himself of it. Though I think as time has gone on Redcloak has had more and more de facto control over finances since he was the one actually managing the whole hobgoblin army and so forth. Basically what I'm saying is that Xykon wants to be able to delegate responsibility for the boring details to Redcloak while maintaining the image that he is in total control of everything, while in actuality Redcloak's willingness to do the managing and deal with the details gives him a certain amount of power and leverage.

[Squire Doodad]

If I had to guess I would guess that Xykon probably at least tries to be seen to be in complete control of the finances to send the message that he's in control and to reassure himself of it. Though I think as time has gone on Redcloak has had more and more de facto control over finances since he was the one actually managing the whole hobgoblin army and so forth. Basically what I'm saying is that Xykon wants to be able to delegate responsibility for the boring details to Redcloak while maintaining the image that he is in total control of everything, while in actuality Redcloak's willingness to do the managing and deal with the details gives him a certain amount of power and leverage.

...honestly?
RC would be in charge of financing, simply because Xykon would instead go off to blow up the countryside after 5 minutes of trying to file paperwork. RC has an attention span that isn't measured in seconds.

[CriticalFailure]

...honestly?
RC would be in charge of financing, simply because Xykon would instead go off to blow up the countryside after 5 minutes of trying to file paperwork. RC has an attention span that isn't measured in seconds.

I mean yes but also Xykon would demand that Redcloak run decisions by him and punish Redcloak if he does something he disagrees with or seems to be too independent, so that he can pretend to be in control of the finances while not actually thinking about them for more than four seconds at a time.

[deuterio12]

Pretty sure the Order aren't going to actually fight any gods, just the mortals/undead mucking around with their plans, which covers the vampires and Team Evil both.

Negotiating with Redcloak in order to fix the rifts is the end goal, and it will most likely only be possible by defeating Xykon. The Order destroying his body once was not successful in permanently destroying him, and for Roy at least the whole comic has built up to a final showdown. Defeating Xykon has also remained the Order's goal throughout the comic even though the motivation for doing so has changed (fulfill Roy's father's blood oath, show Roy's father fighters are cool, prevent Xykon from taking control of a gate and weakening reality, defending Azure city, and finally to stop Redcloak's plan from going through and instead convince him to cooperate). Xykon is the main obstacle/big bad that must be defeated to achieve the goal of getting Redcloak to cooperate, similar to any story in which the heroes must defeat the main obstacle/big bad in order to get some more tangible goal such as a macguffin. Redcloak is always portrayed as less powerful than Xykon -

When Xykon was out of minions, who gathered a new goblinoid army?
When the phylactery was lost, who recovered it?
When Xykon got handed a fake phylactery, who noticed it?

Redcloak may be lower level, but he's far more cunning and ruthless while Xykon plays around too much.



he is the mastermind but he almost certainly won't fulfill the role of final boss. Xykon will probably fill the role of final boss.


So you're really claiming that once once the lich puppet is out of the way, Redcloak the fanatic goblin pope who orchestated this whole thing and had already been pursuing his divine doomsday plan for decades before even meeting Xykon when he was still breathing will just fold over? Really?

I simply find that highly unlikely, short of Xykon pulling some arcane shenigans where he manages to fuse himself with the Snarl or something along those lines.



The arc with Elan's father falling out of an airship wasn't really anti climatic per se - the whole point was that they defeated him from a meta narrative stand point by not giving him the story he wanted. So it was satisfying and unique in how it fit into the story.

And it was pretty satisfying to see Roy tear apart the lich with his bare hands. So it would be pretty unsatisfying if it suddenly takes the whole OotS to crush the puny skeleton again.

Actually considering all the shonen training Roy's been pulling out, it's a lot more likely he'll solo Xykon quite easily.

:roy: "Stand back everybody, Xykon's mine"
:xykon: "Oh yeah, how are you gonna pull that off?"
:roy: "I've got this fancy +5 ancestral sword of undead asskicking"
:xykon: "Disjunction."
:roy: "..."
:xykon: "Hahaha just like old times!"
:roy: "...This hand of mine is glowing green."
:roy: "Its loud roar tells me to defeat you!"
:roy: "Here I go! ERUPTING GREENHILT FINGER!"
:xykon: "GGAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!"
:roy: "HEAT END!"
:xykon: "Well, win some, lose some-Wait, why I'm not in my astral plane fortress?"
:redcloak: "You've failed me for the last time." (destroys real phylactery)
:durkon: "Great, now all we need you to do is betray your god and make this world where goblinoids are treated as exp last forever!"
:redcloak: "... No. My turn now. Implosion."

[CriticalFailure]

When Xykon was out of minions, who gathered a new goblinoid army?
When the phylactery was lost, who recovered it?
When Xykon got handed a fake phylactery, who noticed it?

Redcloak may be lower level, but he's far more cunning and ruthless while Xykon plays around too much.




Yeah Redcloak is the one with the long term planning capabilities and the taskmaster of Team Evil. When Redcloak wanted Team Evil to take a break from the gate quest in order to set up a goblin nation we saw what Xykon does when he doesn't have someone keeping things on track. Though he has shown initiative in tracking down Sereni's diary and making himself an astral fortress, overall he is content to mess around killing things and watching things kill each other. However, when it comes to actual combat Xykon way outclasses Redcloak, literally. It would be pretty anti climatic for the whole comic to build towards a show down with Xykon only to have the final boss be a character who has spent the whole comic trying to keep Xykon placated because he knows he can't take him in battle.




So you're really claiming that once once the lich puppet is out of the way, Redcloak the fanatic goblin pope who orchestated this whole thing and had already been pursuing his divine doomsday plan for decades before even meeting Xykon when he was still breathing will just fold over? Really?



Nope, never said that, that's a straw man argument.




I simply find that highly unlikely, short of Xykon pulling some arcane shenigans where he manages to fuse himself with the Snarl or something along those lines.



Good thing that wasn't my point, then.




And it was pretty satisfying to see Roy tear apart the lich with his bare hands. So it would be pretty unsatisfying if it suddenly takes the whole OotS to crush the puny skeleton again.



Yeah but they didn't manage to destroy him, they've been trying to destroy him permanently since, and it's almost been portrayed as lucky that he was thrown into the gate and destroyed by Dorukan's abjurations.





Actually considering all the shonen training Roy's been pulling out, it's a lot more likely he'll solo Xykon quite easily.



Maybe. The final battles will likely emphasize team work and how the Order has been able to grow as a team and work together. This could still involve Roy mostly soloing Xykon depending on just how much hell is breaking loose at their final showdown.





:roy: "Stand back everybody, Xykon's mine"
:xykon: "Oh yeah, how are you gonna pull that off?"
:roy: "I've got this fancy +5 ancestral sword of undead asskicking"
:xykon: "Disjunction."
:roy: "..."
:xykon: "Hahaha just like old times!"
:roy: "...This hand of mine is glowing green."
:roy: "Its loud roar tells me to defeat you!"
:roy: "Here I go! ERUPTING GREENHILT FINGER!"
:xykon: "GGAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!"
:roy: "HEAT END!"
:xykon: "Well, win some, lose some-Wait, why I'm not in my astral plane fortress?"
:redcloak: "You've failed me for the last time." (destroys real phylactery)
:durkon: "Great, now all we need you to do is betray your god and make this world where goblinoids are treated as exp last forever!"
:redcloak: "... No. My turn now. Implosion."


I mean there are many ways the final showdown can go, and I don't think that killing Xykon is enough to get Redcloak on their side. It's quite possible that Redcloak will do something drastic when he realizes that his plan A is in shambles, like try to destroy the last gate. Which could possibly introduce the snarl as an enemy, which is probably the only thing that could overshadow Xykon as a bigger badder bad. Currently, Xykon is the biggest physical obstacle to negotiating with Redcloak and the big obstacle that the whole team will probably have to rally around. Xykon isn't the only obstacle, but he will probably be the main obstacle to getting Redcloak on board (whether due to Redcloak's plan still being viable as long as Xykon is around or because Xykon realizes Redcloak's betrayal and becomes intent on killing him before the order can get a look in). Yes, there are other obstacles, but I don't think "Redcloak's deepseated emotional issues" qualifies as a big bad.

[LadyEowyn]

The Order (and Thor) are definitely going to have to offer Redcloak and/or The Dark One a better deal than they’re currently prepared to offer. And “patch the existing rifts continuously on a long-term basis so this world will last a while longer” is still to too much of a stopgap to be the way the story ends.

The OOTS’ pitch to Redcloak is going to end up as something more like “the Dark One becomes an equal partner in shaping the world, goblinoids gain metaphysical equality with the other species, and the Snarl is permanently contained because TDO’s participation makes this world a 4-quiddity world”.

I see that happening because the story, and especially HTPGHS, are so heavily and utterly opposed to unjust systems in general, and to the idea of sapient XP-fodder in particular. The information provided by Thor made it very evident that this story isn’t going to end with the heroes successfully upholding the status quo.

Redcloak isn’t the final boss because he and TDO aren’t (only) the source of the danger relating to the Snarl - they’re also the the only path to ending that danger.

[Rrmcklin]

I'm not going to say anything definitive here, but I will say that almost everything about Redcloak would lead me to believe that him actually accepted Durkon's offer, regardless of what actually happens, as being an incredibly big stretch for the character. Again, no final judgement, because we have one more book left, and it may very well be huge and packed to the brim, but I would hold off on assuming that's going to happen just because of this Thor's plans.

And, incidentally, even beyond Redcloak's sunk cost fallacy hindering his cooperativeness, I find it a bit strange so many people actually expect Thor's plan to work.

For one thing he explained it all. Basic rules of storytelling almost guarantee that means it won't happen the way he plans. And even then, it's not actually a permanent solution. Thor admits that even after patching the Rifts new ones will continue to eventually form, he just plans to keep patching them over and over. That's just not a definitive, satisfying note to end on.

Which isn't to say the whole Purple Quiddity thing will amount to nothing, I'm sure it will, it just won't amount to what the characters plan for it to amount to.

[CriticalFailure]

The Order (and Thor) are definitely going to have to offer Redcloak and/or The Dark One a better deal than they’re currently prepared to offer. And “patch the existing rifts continuously on a long-term basis so this world will last a while longer” is still to too much of a stopgap to be the way the story ends.

The OOTS’ pitch to Redcloak is going to end up as something more like “the Dark One becomes an equal partner in shaping the world, goblinoids gain metaphysical equality with the other species, and the Snarl is permanently contained because TDO’s participation makes this world a 4-quiddity world”.

I see that happening because the story, and especially HTPGHS, are so heavily and utterly opposed to unjust systems in general, and to the idea of sapient XP-fodder in particular. The information provided by Thor made it very evident that this story isn’t going to end with the heroes successfully upholding the status quo.

Redcloak isn’t the final boss because he and TDO aren’t (only) the source of the danger relating to the Snarl - they’re also the the only path to ending that danger.

I agree with this. There are so many possible ways things could go but I tend to think that it's pretty likely that green quiddty from within the rifts could come into play, and that there's a fairly high chance of the Order having some contact or interaction with the rift world. Possible due to Redcloak messing with the final gate.

[woweedd]

Redcloak does not control Xykon. That's his delusional confidence in The Plan talking. As seen by his continued lack of eye and how many of his follower's have died for X's amusement, he's ultimately a slave: He just doesn't admit it. That fact has been set in stone ever since what happened to Right Eye. Ultimately, Xykon is the main villain, not him, and, if he tries to turn on him, he's gonna get a nasty surprise. More to the point, Redcloak's a tragic villain, and I see him getting a tragic end. It was not "all worth it". If there is peace for Goblins in the future, and i'm sure there will be...I'm also sure he won't live to see it. Maybe he'll put a Heroic Sacrifice, dying to help bring down Xykon, even if not striking the final blow. My bet is on breaking the Phylatancy just before Xykon kills him, since that will mean the Order still has to do something, namely, kill Xykon, but he'll play a vital role. But the point i'm making is, he's not getting out of this story alive.

[CriticalFailure]

Redcloak does not control Xykon. That's his delusional confidence in The Plan talking. As seen by his continued lack of eye and how many of his follower's have died for X's amusement, he's ultimately a slave: He just doesn't admit it. That fact has been set in stone ever since what happened to Right Eye. Ultimately, Xykon is the main villain, not him, and, if he tries to turn on him, he's gonna get a nasty surprise. More to the point, Redcloak's a tragic villain, and I see him getting a tragic end. It was not "all worth it". If there is peace for Goblins in the future, and i'm sure there will be...I'm also sure he won't live to see it. Maybe he'll put a Heroic Sacrifice, dying to help bring down Xykon, even if not striking the final blow. My bet is on breaking the Phylatancy just before Xykon kills him, since that will mean the Order still has to do something, namely, kill Xykon, but he'll play a vital role. But the point i'm making is, he's not getting out of this story alive.

I don't see why everyone here is so convinced that Redcloak will get some sort of Redemtion=Death treatment, it's literally the most boring and played out and predictable take possible and wouldn't even be very meaningful because Redcloak has already sacrificed everything for the Plan and doesn't have anything to live for outside it. There are a great many things that could possibly happen to him but I think it would be thematically hard to pull off something along the lines of "sacrifices himself helping to bring Xykon down" when his character arc is clearly emphasizing that all the sacrifices he's made up to this point haven't been worth it. Based on the current themes that seem to be highlighted in his arc it seems more thematically fitting to have him alive but facing the realization that in pursuit of the Plan he has sacrificed anything he's cared about and basically been miserable for nothing.

[Rrmcklin]

Redcloak does not control Xykon. That's his delusional confidence in The Plan talking. As seen by his continued lack of eye and how many of his follower's have died for X's amusement, he's ultimately a slave: He just doesn't admit it. That fact has been set in stone ever since what happened to Right Eye. Ultimately, Xykon is the main villain, not him, and, if he tries to turn on him, he's gonna get a nasty surprise. More to the point, Redcloak's a tragic villain, and I see him getting a tragic end. It was not "all worth it". If there is peace for Goblins in the future, and i'm sure there will be...I'm also sure he won't live to see it. Maybe he'll put a Heroic Sacrifice, dying to help bring down Xykon, even if not striking the final blow. My bet is on breaking the Phylatancy just before Xykon kills him, since that will mean the Order still has to do something, namely, kill Xykon, but he'll play a vital role. But the point i'm making is, he's not getting out of this story alive.

Basically my feelings as well. Thing will get better for goblinkind in spite of Redcloak, not because of him. This story is not going to end in a way that validates him.

I'm very confused by the notion that some people have that there's an either or to "Redcloak gets what he wants" or "the status quo for goblins remains in effect."


I don't see why everyone here is so convinced that Redcloak will get some sort of Redemtion=Death treatment, it's literally the most boring and played out and predictable take possible and wouldn't even be very meaningful because Redcloak has already sacrificed everything for the Plan and doesn't have anything to live for outside it. There are a great many things that could possibly happen to him but I think it would be thematically hard to pull off something along the lines of "sacrifices himself helping to bring Xykon down" when his character arc is clearly emphasizing that all the sacrifices he's made up to this point haven't been worth it. Based on the current themes that seem to be highlighted in his arc it seems more thematically fitting to have him alive but facing the realization that in pursuit of the Plan he has sacrificed anything he's cared about and basically been miserable for nothing.

I don't know who this "everyone" is, but I'm thinking "redemption+death" is the nicest thing that could happen to him. Because, I see to have taking the exact opposite thing from his character arc as you, and what you describe as the most thematically appropriate thing, strikes me as incredibly unlikely for how this character has been written and the message the author has been trying to get across with him.

[CriticalFailure]

Basically my feelings as well. Thing will get better for goblinkind in spite of Redcloak, not because of him. This story is not going to end in a way that validates him.

I'm very confused by the notion that some people have that there's an either or to "Redcloak gets what he wants" or "the status quo for goblins remains in effect."

I don't know who this "everyone" is, but I'm thinking "redemption+death" is the nicest thing that could happen to him. Because, I see to have taking the exact opposite thing from his character arc as you, and what you describe as the most thematically appropriate thing, strikes me as incredibly unlikely for how this character has been written and the message the author has been trying to get across with him.

You see his character arc as opposite to "he has been wrong to work with Xykon and make all these sacrifices and compromises with an undead abomination rather than admitting he messed up and backing out?" What do you think he's trying to get across?

[LadyEowyn]

What Redcloak wants, in large part, is to change the status quo for goblins, albeit that he also wants to do that without acknowledging that many of his prior actions have been detrimental to goblins. If the status quo is changed for the better (which it almost certainly will be), he will, at least in part, have gotten what he wants.

I agree that the narrative isn’t going to validate his actions up to this point, and that if he changes his outlook and assists the heroes it’s going to be part of a very painful emotional process for him.

The main reason why I think it’s possible he could change sides is that I don’t see any way for the Snarl situation to be resolved without assistance from either Redcloak and TDO, and a switch of perspective from Redcloak, a character whose development we’ve followed through the whole series, is more interesting that a switch if perspective from TDO, a character the audience has no investment in as of yet.

[Rrmcklin]

You see his character arc as opposite to "he has been wrong to work with Xykon and make all these sacrifices and compromises with an undead abomination rather than admitting he messed up and backing out?" What do you think he's trying to get across?

No, that's right. What I'm disagreeing with you is the notion that it would be thematically appropriate for him to realized all of this in the final hour or something and work towards actually making things better, and just live on in atonement or whatever.

But we already have that storyline - it's V's. And it's actually works as good contrast, one person who was on the wrong path for a long time that culminated in something terrible that they slowly, eventually have their follies wash over them, and committee to being better even if they very well might not ever be able to fix everything. In contrast to a character who will not do that.

Everything about how Redcloak has been written has lead me to believe he is not a character that will ever stop doubling down even in the face of things even when given an option that's much more likely to be better and less risky.

Again, I can't say any of this with 100% certainty because the final book hasn't started yet. But, well, I'm pretty certain about it.

[RatElemental]

No, that's right. What I'm disagreeing with you is the notion that it would be thematically appropriate for him to realized all of this in the final hour or something and work towards actually making things better, and just live on in atonement or whatever.

But we already have that storyline - it's V's. And it's actually works as good contrast, one person who was on the wrong path for a long time that culminated in something terrible that they slowly, eventually have their follies wash over them, and committee to being better even if they very well might not ever be able to fix everything. In contrast to a character who will not do that.

Everything about how Redcloak has been written has lead me to believe he is not a character that will ever stop doubling down even in the face of things even when given an option that's much more likely to be better and less risky.

Again, I can't say any of this with 100% certainty because the final book hasn't started yet. But, well, I'm pretty certain about it.

I don't think Rich is going for a downer ending, which failing to get Redcloak to work with the heroes would be.

[Rrmcklin]

I don't think Rich is going for a downer ending, which failing to get Redcloak to work with the heroes would be.

I've mentioned this before, but I don't believe this to be the case, because I'm fairly certain this story isn't going to be resolved by Thor's plan anyway. Not to say all the talk about Quiddity and the Dark One will amount to nothing, but I doubt this story is going to go "okay, we beat Xykon and got Redcloak on our side, so everything is over."

I just find the insistence that these past revelations means that Redcloak must be redeemed very strange with everything else about the character.

[Dion]

I just find the insistence that these past revelations means that Redcloak must be redeemed very strange with everything else about the character.

I don’t think we’re going to see the classic literary three-act “redemption arc” for redcloak, where we establish flaws, demonstrate conflict, and finally show redemption.

Or maybe we will? Redemption at the end of the movie is the standard trope. Luke found redemption by learning to trust himself, Han found redemption by learning to help his friends, Leia found redemption by learning a new hairstyle.

Maybe redcloak will find redemption with new cape.

[CriticalFailure]

What Redcloak wants, in large part, is to change the status quo for goblins, albeit that he also wants to do that without acknowledging that many of his prior actions have been detrimental to goblins. If the status quo is changed for the better (which it almost certainly will be), he will, at least in part, have gotten what he wants.

I agree that the narrative isn’t going to validate his actions up to this point, and that if he changes his outlook and assists the heroes it’s going to be part of a very painful emotional process for him.

The main reason why I think it’s possible he could change sides is that I don’t see any way for the Snarl situation to be resolved without assistance from either Redcloak and TDO, and a switch of perspective from Redcloak, a character whose development we’ve followed through the whole series, is more interesting that a switch if perspective from TDO, a character the audience has no investment in as of yet.

Yeah I agree with this, and I have a hard time seeing how he would end up coming around in the kind of "makes a snap decision to change his mind and sacrifices himself" situation, if it does happen I think it will require some actual talking to people and be a bit more drawn out.


No, that's right. What I'm disagreeing with you is the notion that it would be thematically appropriate for him to realized all of this in the final hour or something and work towards actually making things better, and just live on in atonement or whatever.

But we already have that storyline - it's V's. And it's actually works as good contrast, one person who was on the wrong path for a long time that culminated in something terrible that they slowly, eventually have their follies wash over them, and committee to being better even if they very well might not ever be able to fix everything. In contrast to a character who will not do that.

Everything about how Redcloak has been written has lead me to believe he is not a character that will ever stop doubling down even in the face of things even when given an option that's much more likely to be better and less risky.

Again, I can't say any of this with 100% certainty because the final book hasn't started yet. But, well, I'm pretty certain about it.

I think Redcloak and V's stories are different enough that it wouldn't be repetitive for Redcloak to live. I also don't think it's likely Redcloak will decide he wants to try to become Lawful Good or something, in the context of his character the specific problems are refusing to take responsibility for mistakes and failures that occur during his leadership, doubling down on his alliance with Xykon and sacrificing goblinoids who he is supposed to be leading in order to keep it going, and doubling down on revenge rather than focusing on improving things for goblins. That isn't to say Redcloak will definitely turn around, maybe he will keep doubling down, but I don't think the line of sacrifices he has made that have been depicted as wrong headed will be followed by him sacrificing his life in a positive light, especially since he's already been shown to not actually value his life outside of completing the plan, being willing to sacrifice not only his life but his soul to do his God's bidding, and not have anything worth living for outside the plan anymore anyways. Maybe I'm wrong but a character sacrificing their life doesn't seem as impactful when they don't actually have anything to live for and already thought that it was pretty likely to happen, or worse.


I don't think Rich is going for a downer ending, which failing to get Redcloak to work with the heroes would be.

I go back and forth on this because on the one had, Redcloak is a tragic villain, while on the other, OOTS seems pretty hopeful in tone and ending with a character, no matter how evil, basically get completely and mentally broken down and then killed after having their utter failure rubbed in their face is pretty depressing, no matter how evil. On the one hand it would really drive home the "tragic villain" story, but on the other, as far as I can speculate now it seems like it would have to pretty strongly highlight how limited negotiation is as a strategy, how limited good is in its ability to address problems, and how past enmities and past choices and are truly intractable and often can't be overcome. These aren't inherently bad things to bring up and I think the comic often suggests some of these ideas, but in my extremely unprofessional opinion OOTS feels like it is at its core more optimistic than pessimistic and I think makes it somewhat less likely that Redcloak will double down on his choices and then die, and probably means that if it does happen it won't occur too close to the end to avoid said downer. But who knows, this is just speculation from an idiot.


I've mentioned this before, but I don't believe this to be the case, because I'm fairly certain this story isn't going to be resolved by Thor's plan anyway. Not to say all the talk about Quiddity and the Dark One will amount to nothing, but I doubt this story is going to go "okay, we beat Xykon and got Redcloak on our side, so everything is over."

I just find the insistence that these past revelations means that Redcloak must be redeemed very strange with everything else about the character.

I don't think it will simply be resolved with Thor's plan, but because the need for cooperation and teamwork is such a big thing in OOTS I think that Team Purple will still be critical to whatever resolution occurs with the snarl. Though really anything could happen with that given how many options the rift world leaves open.

[Schroeswald]

I don’t think we’re going to see the classic literary three-act “redemption arc” for redcloak, where we establish flaws, demonstrate conflict, and finally show redemption.

Or maybe we will? Redemption at the end of the movie is the standard trope. Luke found redemption by learning to trust himself, Han found redemption by learning to help his friends, Leia found redemption by learning a new hairstyle.

Maybe redcloak will find redemption with new cape.
He will be known as Purplecloak after his redemption.